System and Method for Managing Size of Clusters in a Computing Environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018157511-A1
Application number	US-201615368381-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 2, 2016
Priority date	Dec 2, 2016
Publication date	Jun 7, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

A number of hosts in a logical cluster is adjusted up or down in an elastic manner by tracking membership of hosts in the cluster using a first data structure and tracking membership of hosts in a spare pool using a second data structure, and upon determining that a triggering condition for adding another host is met and that all hosts in the cluster are being used, selecting a host from the spare pool, and programmatically adding an identifier of the selected host to the first data structure and programmatically deleting the identifier of the selected host from the second data structure.

First claim

We claim:

1 . In a data center comprising a cluster of hosts, a method of adjusting the number of hosts in the cluster, said method comprising:
tracking membership of hosts in the cluster using a first data structure and tracking membership of hosts in a spare pool using a second data structure; and upon determining that a triggering condition for adding another host is met and that all hosts in the cluster are being used, selecting a host from the spare pool, and programmatically adding an identifier of the selected host to the first data structure and programmatically deleting the identifier of the selected host from the second data structure.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the triggering condition is a partial or total failure of a host in the cluster.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
tracking membership of failed hosts using a third data structure; and programmatically adding an identifier of the failed host in the third data structure and programmatically deleting the identifier of the selected host from the first data structure.

4 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
copying data locally stored in the failed host to a storage device accessible by the cluster.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the triggering condition is met when an average resource utilization in the host is greater than an upper threshold utilization.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the resource is CPU or memory.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
upon determining that an average resource utilization in the host is less than a lower threshold utilization,
migrating all workloads from a host with the lowest resource utilization to another host in the cluster, and
programmatically adding an identifier of the host with the lowest resource utilization to the second data structure and programmatically deleting the identifier of the host with the lowest resource utilization from the first data structure.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
copying data locally stored in the host with the lowest resource utilization to a storage device accessible by the cluster.

9 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable in a computing device to cause the computing device to perform the steps of:
tracking membership of hosts in the cluster using a first data structure and tracking membership of hosts in a spare pool using a second data structure; and upon determining that a triggering condition for adding another host is met and that all hosts in the cluster are being used, selecting a host from the spare pool, and adding an identifier of the selected host to the first data structure and deleting the identifier of the selected host from the second data structure.

10 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the triggering condition is a partial or total failure of a host in the cluster.

11 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the steps further comprise:
tracking membership of failed hosts using a third data structure; and adding an identifier of the failed host in the third data structure and deleting the identifier of the selected host from the first data structure.

12 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the steps further comprise:
copying data locally stored in the failed host to a storage device accessible by the cluster.

13 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the triggering condition is met when an average resource utilization in the host is greater than an upper threshold utilization.

14 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the resource is CPU or memory.

15 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the steps further comprise:
upon determining that an average resource utilization in the host is less than a lower threshold utilization,
migrating all workloads from a host with the lowest resource utilization to another host in the cluster, and
adding an identifier of the host with the lowest resource utilization to the second data structure and deleting the identifier of the host with the lowest resource utilization from the first data structure.

16 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein the steps further comprise:
copying data locally stored in the host with the lowest resource utilization to a storage device accessible by the cluster.

17 . A system of computers, comprising:
a cluster of hosts; a spare pool of hosts; and a management server configured to:
track membership of hosts in the cluster using a first data structure and tracking membership of hosts in a spare pool using a second data structure, and
upon determining that a triggering condition for adding another host is met and that all hosts in the cluster are being used, select a host from the spare pool, and programmatically add an identifier of the selected host to the first data structure and programmatically delete the identifier of the selected host from the second data structure.

18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the triggering condition is a partial or total failure of a host in the cluster.

19 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the triggering condition is met when an average resource utilization in the host is greater than an upper threshold utilization.

20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the resource is CPU or memory.

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Krishnan Manoj
• Agarwal Anant
• Chandrasekaran Rahul
• Mahindrakar Prafulla
• Cherukupalli Ravi

Classifications

• 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

• G06F9/5088

  involving task migration · CPC title

• G06F9/5061

  Partitioning or combining of resources · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

  Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing · CPC title

• G06F2209/505

  Clust · CPC title