Virtualization-based environments for problem resolution

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9250988-B2
Application number	US-201213484459-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 31, 2012
Priority date	May 31, 2012
Publication date	Feb 2, 2016
Grant date	Feb 2, 2016

Abstract

According to one aspect of the present disclosure a method and technique for allocating virtualization-based resources for resolving a problem report associated with a computing environment is disclosed. The method includes: receiving a problem report associated with a computing environment; determining a resource template from the problem report corresponding to the computing environment; determining whether a virtual machine is available from a virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template; and responsive to determining that a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template, utilizing the virtual machine for the problem report.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving a problem report associated with a computing environment;
determining a resource template from the problem report corresponding to the computing environment;
determining whether a virtual machine is available from a virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template;
responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template, identifying optional resource attributes based on the problem report, the optional resource attributes indicating resources of the computing environment unnecessary for resolving a problem indicated by the problem report;
determining whether a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool without the optional resource attributes;
responsive to determining that a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template without the optional resource attributes, utilizing the virtual machine as a re-create environment for resolving the problem report;
determining whether to start the virtual machine based on an age and a severity of a problem indicated by the problem report; and
responsive to the severity of the problem indicated by the problem report, suspending or re-allocating various virtualization-based resources currently active for resolving a different problem report if enough resources are not available to start the virtual machine for the problem report.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template:
identifying replaceable resource attributes of the resource template; and
determining whether a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the replaceable resource attributes.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template:
determining whether the virtualization-based resource pool comprises resources corresponding to the resource template; and
responsive to determining that the virtualization-based resource pool comprises resources corresponding to the resource template, creating a virtual machine from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
responsive to resolving the problem report, determining whether the created virtual machine comprises a reusable virtual machine; and
responsive to determining that the created virtual machine comprises a reusable virtual machine, adding the created virtual machine to the virtualization-based resource pool.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the resource template comprises determining hardware configuration data and software configuration data corresponding to the computing environment.

6. A system, comprising:
a processor unit; and
a management application executable by the processor unit to dynamically allocate virtualization-based resources for resolving a problem report associated with a computing environment, the management application configured to:
receive the problem report;
determine a resource template from the problem report corresponding to the computing environment;
determine whether a virtual machine is available from a virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template;
responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template, identify optional resource attributes based on the problem report, the optional resource attributes indicating resources of the computing environment unnecessary for resolving a problem indicated by the problem report;
determine whether a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool without the optional resource attributes;
responsive to determining that a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template without the optional resource attributes, utilize the virtual machine as a re-create environment for resolving the problem report;
determine whether to start the virtual machine based on an age and a severity of a problem indicated by the problem report; and
responsive to the severity of the problem indicated by the problem report, suspend or re-allocate various virtualization-based resources currently active for resolving a different problem report if enough resources are not available to start the virtual machine for the problem report.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the management application is further configured to, responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template:
identify replaceable resource attributes of the resource template; and
determine whether a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the replaceable resource attributes.

8. The system of claim 6 , wherein the management application is further configured to, responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template:
determine whether the virtualization-based resource pool comprises resources corresponding to the resource template; and
responsive to determining that the virtualization-based resource pool comprises resources corresponding to the resource template, create a virtual machine from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
responsive to resolving the problem report, determine whether the created virtual machine comprises a reusable virtual machine; and
responsive to determining that the created virtual machine comprises a reusable virtual machine, add the created virtual machine to the virtualization-based resource pool.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the management application is configured to determine hardware configuration data and software configuration data corresponding to the computing environment to define the resource template.

11. A computer program product for allocating virtualization-based resources for resolving a problem report associated with a computing environment, 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:
receive the problem report;
determine a resource template from the problem report corresponding to the computing environment;
determine whether a virtual machine is available from a virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template;
responsive to determining that a virtual machine is not available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template, identify optional resource attributes based on the problem report, the optional resource attributes indicating resources of the computing environment unnecessary for resolving a problem indicated by the problem report;
determine whether a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool without the optional resource attributes;
responsive to determining that a virtual machine is available from the virtualization-based resource pool based on the resource template without the optional resource attributes, utilize the virtual

Assignees

• Adekile Olusegun
• Maul Christopher A
• Silva Asima
• Wong Cesar A
• IBM

Inventors

• Adekile Olusegun
• Maul Christopher A
• Silva Asima
• Wong Cesar A

Classifications

• G06F9/455

  Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines · CPC title

• G06F11/0793

  Remedial or corrective actions (recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40) · CPC title

• G06F11/0709 Primary

  in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems · CPC title

• G06F11/0712

  in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems · CPC title