Configuration of virtual machines in view of response time constraints

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10002016-B2
Application number	US-201514807727-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 23, 2015
Priority date	Jul 23, 2015
Publication date	Jun 19, 2018
Grant date	Jun 19, 2018

Abstract

A system and methods are disclosed for configuring a virtualized system for real-time response from virtual machines (VMs). In accordance with one embodiment, a VM request is received, where the request specifies a number N of virtual processors for executing real-time tasks, and where N is a positive integer. In response to the VM request, a plurality of physical processors are partitioned into a first subset dedicated to real-time tasks and a second subset dedicated to non-real-time tasks, the first subset having at least N physical processors, and one or more commands are submitted to one or both of a hypervisor and a guest OS of a first VM to configure the first VM to have N virtual processors dedicated to real-time tasks and a set of additional virtual processors dedicated to non-real-time tasks.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for configuring a virtualized system for real-time response from a virtual machine, comprising:
partitioning, by a processing device, a plurality of physical processors into:
a first set of physical processors dedicated to performing tasks each having a response time constraint, wherein the response time constraint indicates an amount of time within which at least one physical processor in the first set is to perform the associated task; and
a second set of physical processors dedicated to performing tasks each lacking the response time constraint:
receiving, by the processing device, a request to create a virtual machine, the request specifying a number of virtual processors for executing tasks having response time constraints; and

in response to receiving the request:
instantiating the virtual machine with a response time constraint capable operating system;
submitting, by the processing device, a command to the operating system, wherein the command is to configure the virtual machine to comprise:
a first set of virtual processors dedicated to executing tasks having the response time constraints, wherein each virtual processor of the first set of virtual processors is assigned to a respective physical processor of the first set of physical processor; and
a second set of virtual processors dedicated to executing tasks lacking the response time constraints, wherein each virtual processor of the second set of virtual processors is assigned to a respective physical processor either in the first set of physical processors or the second set of physical processors, wherein the first set of virtual processors has at least the specified number of virtual processors, and wherein a virtual processor of the second set of virtual processors is assigned to a first physical processor of the first set of physical processors only when none of the virtual processors in the first set of virtual processors are assigned to the first physical processor; and

deploying an application that includes one or more tasks having response time constraints and one or more tasks lacking response time constraint on the virtual machine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a tool executed by the processing device submits the command in response to the request, and wherein at least one of a hypervisor or a host operating system assigns virtual processors to physical processors.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a tool executed by the processing device submits the command and assigns virtual processors to physical processors.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the partitioning is performed by at least one of a hypervisor or a host operating system.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein at least one of the hypervisor or the operating system are capable of executing tasks having the response time constraints.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the operating system is capable of executing tasks having the response time constraints.

7. An apparatus comprising:
a memory; and
a processing device, operatively coupled to the memory, to:
partition a plurality of physical processors into:
a first set of physical processors dedicated to performing tasks each having a response time constraint, wherein the response time constraint indicates an amount of time within which at least one physical processor in the first set is to perform the associated task; and
a second set of physical processors dedicated to performing tasks each lacking the response time constraint, wherein the first set of physical processors has a first number of physical processors,

receive a request for a virtual machine, the request specifying a number of virtual processors for executing tasks having the response time constraints, wherein the specified number of virtual processors is less than or equal to the first number of physical processors;
instantiate the virtual machine with a response time constraint capable operating system; and
submit one or more commands to at least one of a hypervisor or the response time constraint capable operating system, wherein the one or more commands are to configure the virtual machine to comprise:
a first set of virtual processors dedicated to executing tasks having the response time constraints, wherein each virtual processor of the first set of virtual processors is assigned to a respective physical processor of the first set of physical processor; and
a second set of virtual processors dedicated to executing tasks lacking the response time constraints, and wherein the first set of virtual processors has at least the specified number of virtual processors, wherein each virtual processor of the second set of virtual processors is assigned to a respective physical processor either in the first set of physical processors or the second set of physical processors, and wherein a virtual processor of the second set of virtual processors is assigned to a first physical processor of the first set of physical processors only when none of the virtual processors in the first set of virtual processors are assigned to the first physical processor; and

deploy an application that includes one or more tasks having response time constraints and one or more tasks lacking response time constraints on the virtual machine.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein a second number of physical processors of the first set of physical processors are in use when the request is received, and wherein the second number of physical processors is a positive integer less than the first number of physical processors, and wherein the processing device is further to determine, prior to submitting the one or more commands, that a size of the first set of virtual processors is less than or equal to a difference of the first number of physical processors and the second number of physical processors.

9. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein a first task that lacks the response constraint and is executed by the virtual machine is a system task.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the system task comprises at least one of network routing or disk access.

11. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein a first task that lacks the response constraint is executed by the hypervisor or a host operating system, and wherein a second task having the response constraint is a system task that services the virtual machine.

12. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the one or more commands are further to create the virtual machine in response to the request.

13. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein at least one of the hypervisor or the response time constraint capable operating system are modified to execute the one or more commands.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored therein which, when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to:
partition a plurality of physical processors into:
a first set of physical processors dedicated to performing tasks each having a response time constraint, wherein the response time constraint indicates an amount of time within which at least one physical processor in the first set is to perform the associated task; and
a second set of physical processors dedicated to tasks each lacking the response time constraint, wherein the first set of physical processors has a first number of physical processors,

receive, after the partitioning, a request for a virtual machine, the request specifying a number of virtual processors for executing tasks having the response time constraint, wherein the specified number of virtual processors is greater than the first number of physical processors; and
in response to the requ

Assignees

• Red Hat Inc

Inventors

• Riel Henri Van
• Capitulino Luiz
• Tosatti Marcelo

Classifications

• G06F9/5005

  to service a request · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F9/5038

  considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration (scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups) · CPC title

• G06F9/5077

  Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources (specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455) · CPC title