Dynamic system level agreement provisioning

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10764158-B2
Application number	US-201314096300-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 4, 2013
Priority date	Dec 4, 2013
Publication date	Sep 1, 2020
Grant date	Sep 1, 2020

Abstract

According to one aspect of the present disclosure a system and technique for dynamic system level agreement provisioning includes: a computing environment configured with allocatable computing resources; and a host having a processor unit operable to execute a service level agreement (SLA) module. The SLA module is configured to: identify service level criteria for a customer of computing services of the computing environment; determine characteristics of the computing environment; identify a time period for providing the computing services; evaluate one or more utility functions defining service level variables; and automatically determine a service level agreement (SLA) provision for the customer based on the one or more utility functions.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a computing environment configured with allocatable computing resources; and
a host having a processor unit operable to execute a module, the module configured to:
identify service level criteria for requested computing services of the computing environment;
determine characteristics of the computing environment;
identify a time period for providing the computing services;
construct one or more utility functions defining service level variables corresponding to the service level criteria for the time period, the utility functions including a weight applied to each service level variable, the weight representing a probability of a violation of the respective service level variable; and
evaluate the one or more utility functions against a plurality of computing resource configurations allocatable from a resource pool of the computing environment; and

the host having a management application executable by the processor to allocate a select one of the computing resource configurations from the resource pool of the computing environment for the requested computing services based on the one or more utility functions being maximized based on the plurality of computing resource configurations without exceeding a limit utility value.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the module is further configured to:
monitor the computing environment over the time period; and
automatically update the one or more utility functions based on a change to the computing environment.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the module is configured to receive from the customer a specification of a response time parameter, an availability parameter, and a capacity parameter.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the module is further configured to selecting the weight based on historical data of the computing environment.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the module is further configured to select the weight based on a most probable cause of a respective service level variable violation for a respective computing resource configuration.

6. A computer program product for dynamic computing resource provisioning, the computer program product comprising:
a non-transitory computer readable medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising computer readable program code configured to:
identify service level criteria for requested computing services of a computing environment;
determine characteristics of the computing environment;
identify a time period for providing the computing services;
construct one or more utility functions defining service level variables corresponding to the service level criteria for the time period, the utility functions including a weight applied to each service level variable, the weight representing a probability of a violation of the respective service level variable;
evaluate the one or more utility functions against a plurality of computing resource configurations allocatable from a resource pool of the computing environment; and
allocate a select one of the computing resource configurations from the resource pool of the computing environment for the requested computing services based on the one or more utility functions being maximized based on the plurality of computing resource configurations without exceeding a limit utility value.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the computer readable program code is configured to:
monitor the computing environment over the time period; and
automatically update the one or more utility functions based on a change to the computing environment.

8. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the computer readable program code is configured to select the weight based on historical data of the computing environment.

9. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the computer readable program code is configured to select the weights based on historical data of the computing environment.

10. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the computer readable program code is configured to select the weights based on a most probable cause of a respective service level variable violation for a respective computing resource configuration.

11. A system, comprising:
a computing environment configured with allocatable computing resources; and
a host having a processor unit operable to execute a module, the module configured to:
receive service level criteria for requested computing services of the computing environment;
determine characteristics of the computing environment;
identify a time period for providing the computing services;
construct for each of a plurality of different computing resource configurations a combined utility function defining service level variables corresponding to the service level criteria for the time period, the combined utility function assessing the joint effects of the service level variables;
select a weight to apply to each service level variable in the respective combined utility functions, the weight representing a probability of a violation of the respective service level variable; and
evaluate the combined utility function for each of the plurality of different computing resource configurations; and

the host having a management application executable by the processor unit to allocate a select one of the plurality of different resource configurations for the requested computing services based on a maximum value of the evaluated combined utility functions.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the module is configured to evaluate changes in the weights occurring over the time period.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Chakra Al
• Ghosh Rahul
• Mcmahan Rocky D
• Raghavan Vasanth

Classifications

• H04L41/5012

  determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time · CPC title

• H04L41/5025

  by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade · CPC title

• H04L41/5006 Primary

  Creating or negotiating SLA contracts, guarantees or penalties · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title