Server virtualization in autonomic management of heterogeneous workloads

Abstract

Server virtualization opens up a range of new possibilities for autonomic datacenter management, through the availability of new automation mechanisms that can be exploited to control and monitor tasks running within virtual machines. This facilitates more powerful and flexible autonomic controls, through management software that maintains the system in a desired state in the face of changing workload and demand. This paper explores in particular the use of server virtualization technology in the autonomic management of data centers running a heterogeneous mix of workloads. We present a system that manages heterogeneous workloads to their performance goals and demonstrate its effectiveness via real-system experiments and simulation.