Dynamically balancing resources in a server farm

摘要

Dynamically balancing resources in a server farm, where the server farm includes servers organized in functional server groups with the servers in each functional server group assigned a same type of data processing task, the servers operatively coupled to data storage through a packet switching fabric, the servers operatively coupled to a system management server, and the balancing of resources includes: monitoring, by a resource balancing module of the system management server, CPU utilization in at least one of the functional server groups; identifying, by the resource balancing module in dependence upon the monitored CPU utilization, an overburdened functional server group, the overburdened functional server group's CPU utilization exceeding a CPU overburden threshold; and increasing, by the resource balancing module, CPU resources of the overburdened functional server group, including moving a transfer server from a source functional server group into the overburdened functional server group.

主权项

1. A method of dynamically balancing data processing resources in a server farm, the server farm comprising a plurality of hardware servers organized in functional server groups with the hardware servers in each functional server group assigned a same type of data processing task, the servers operatively coupled to data storage through a packet switching fabric, the hardware servers operatively coupled to a system management server via an in-band local area network (LAN) and an out-of-band network, the method comprising:
monitoring, by a resource balancing module of the system management server, CPU utilization in hardware of at least one of the functional server groups, wherein monitoring CPU utilization comprises monitoring CPU utilization by out-of-band network data communications directly between the system management server and the hardware servers; identifying, by the resource balancing module in dependence upon the monitored CPU utilization, an overburdened functional server group, the overburdened functional server group's CPU utilization exceeding a CPU overburden threshold, the overburdened functional server group comprising a plurality of data processing tasks executing in a plurality of logical partitions on each of the hardware servers in the overburdened functional server group; increasing, by the resource balancing module, CPU resources of the overburdened functional server group using the in-band LAN, including moving a transfer hardware server from a source functional server group into the overburdened functional server group, the transfer hardware server including a plurality of data processing tasks executing in a plurality of logical partitions on the transfer hardware server; moving the data processing tasks from the transfer hardware server to other logical partitions on one or more other hardware servers in the source functional server group; and installing two or more instances of data processing tasks associated with the overburdened functional server group into logical partitions in the transfer hardware server.