Wireless component state based power management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10613606-B2
Application number	US-201615072795-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 17, 2016
Priority date	Mar 17, 2016
Publication date	Apr 7, 2020
Grant date	Apr 7, 2020

Abstract

Apparatuses, methods and storage medium associated with power management, are disclosed herein. In embodiments, an apparatus for computing may include one or more processors, with each processor having one or more processor cores; one or more wireless communication components; memory coupled with the one or more processors to host a plurality of virtual machines operated by the one or more processors; and a virtual machine monitor to be loaded into the memory and operated by the one or more processors to manage resource allocation to the virtual machines. The virtual machine monitor may include a power manager to manage power consumption of the apparatus, based at least in part on states of the wireless communication components. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus for computing, comprising:
one or more processors, with each processor having one or more processor cores;
one or more wireless communication components;
memory coupled with the one or more processors to host a plurality of virtual machines operated by the one or more processors; and
a virtual machine monitor to be loaded into the memory and operated by the one or more processors to manage operation and resource allocation to the virtual machines;
wherein the virtual machine monitor includes a power manager to manage power consumption of the apparatus, via one or more power management actions to adjust provision of resources to, or to adjust workloads of, the plurality of virtual machines, based at least in part on states of the wireless communication components.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the power manager is to determine correlation between performance or resource usage of the virtual machines and states of the wireless communication components.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the power manager is to obtain or receive states of the wireless communication components from drivers of the wireless communication components, or obtain or receive performance or resource usage information of the virtual machines from a platform performance and resource monitor.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the power manager is to determine whether one or more of the plurality of virtual machines have sufficient resources for next t time units, in response to a state change of one of the one or more wireless communication components, from a less active state to a more active state.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein on determination that one or more of the virtual machines do not have sufficient resources for the next t time unit, the power manager is to trigger one or more power management actions to provide more resources to or reduce workloads of the one or more virtual machines determined to not have sufficient resources for the next t time unit.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein to trigger one or more power management actions includes to cause one or more tasks to be re-assigned to another virtual machine or machines from the one or more virtual machines determined to not have sufficient resources for the next t time unit.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein to trigger one or more power management actions includes to cause one or more processor cores to be mapped to one or more virtual processors of the one or more virtual machines determined to not have sufficient resources for the next t time unit.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein to cause one or more processor cores to be mapped includes to cause the one or more processor cores to transition from an idle or sleep state to an active state, or to increase operating frequency or frequencies of the one or more processor cores.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the power manager is to determine whether one or more of the plurality of virtual machines have excess resources allocated for a next t time unit, in response to a state change of one of the one or more wireless communication components, from a more active state to a less active state.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein on determination that one or more of the virtual machines have excess resources allocated for the next t time unit, the power manager is to trigger one or more power management actions to reduce resources allocated to or increase workload of the one or more virtual machines determined to have excess resource for the next t time unit.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein to trigger one or more power management actions include to cause one or more tasks to be assigned from another virtual machine or machines to the one or more virtual machines determined to have excess resources for the next t time unit.

12. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein to trigger one or more power management actions includes to cause one or more processor cores to be unmapped from one or more virtual processors of the one or more virtual machines determined to have excess resources for the next t time unit.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein to cause one or more processor cores to be unmapped includes to cause the one or more processor cores to transition to a lower power consuming state.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein to cause the one or more processor cores to transition to a lower power consuming state includes to cause the one or more processor cores to transition from an active state to an idle or sleep state, or to decrease operating frequency or frequencies of the one or more processor cores.

15. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more wireless communication components comprise one or more Wi-Fi, Bluetooth®, near field communication (NFC) or cellular transceivers.

16. A method for computing, comprising:
determining, with a power manager of a virtual machine monitor of a computing device, states of one or more wireless communication components of the computing device; and
managing, by the power manager, power consumption of the computing device, based at least in part on the states of the wireless communication components,

via one or more power management actions to adjust provision of resources to, or to adjust workloads of, one or more virtual machines.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising determining, by the power manager, correlation between performance or resource usage of the virtual machines and states of the wireless communication components; and obtaining or receiving, by the power manager, states of the wireless communication components from drivers of the wireless communication components, or obtaining or receiving, by the power manager, performance or resource usage information of the virtual machines from a platform performance and resource monitor.

18. The method of claim 16 , further comprising determining, by the power manager, whether one or more of the plurality of virtual machines have sufficient resources for next t time units, in response to a state change of one of the one or more wireless communication components, from a less active state to a more active state; and on determination that one or more of the virtual machines do not have sufficient resources for next t time unit, triggering, by the power manager, one or more power management actions to provide more resources to or reduce workloads of the one or more virtual machines determined to not have sufficient resources for the next t time unit.

19. The method of claim 16 , further comprising determining, by the power manager, whether one or more of the plurality of virtual machines have excess resources allocated for a next t time unit, in response to a state change of one of the one or more wireless communication components, from a more active state to a less active state; and on determination that one or more of the virtual machines have excess resources allocated for the next t time unit, triggering, by the power manager, one or more power management actions to reduce resources allocated to or increase workload of the one or more virtual machines determined to have excess resource for the next t time unit.

20. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions that cause a computing device, in response to execution of the instructions by one or more processor cores of the computing device, to provide a power manager to a virtual machine monitor of the computing device to:
determine states of one or more wireless comm

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Min Alexander W

Classifications

• G06F1/324

  by lowering clock frequency · CPC title

• G06F9/45533

  Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors · CPC title

• G06F1/3206 Primary

  Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality · CPC title

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F9/5094

  where the allocation takes into account power or heat criteria (power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206) · CPC title