VIRTUAL DATA CENTER THAT ALLOCATES AND MANAGES SYSTEM RESOURCES ACROSS MULTIPLE NODES

摘要

The present invention provides a virtualization infrastructure that allows multiple guest/user partitions (24, 26, 28) to run within a host hardware partition (10). The host system (10) is divided into distinct logical or virtual partitions and special infrastructure partitions (12-22) implemented to control resource management and to control physical I/O device drivers (16, 18) that are, in turn, used by operating systems in other distinct logical or virtual guest/user partitions (24, 26, 28). Host hardware resource management runs as a tracking application in a resource management "ultravisor" partition (14), while host resource management decisions are performed in a higher-level command partition (20) based on policies maintained in a separate operations partition (22). The ultravisor partition (14) maintains a master database (33) of the hardware resource allocations, and virtual partition monitors (34, 36) are provided in each partition to constrain the guest/user operating system to the assigned resources.