Virtual resource partitioning

Virtual resource partitioning (VRP) is an operating system-level virtualization technology that allocates computing resources (such as CPU & I/O) to transactions. Conventional virtualization technologies allocate resources on an operating system (Windows, Linux...) wide basis. VRP works 2 levels deeper by allowing regulation and control of the resources used by specific transactions within an application.^[1]

In many computerized environments, a single user, application, or transaction can appropriate all server resources and by that, affect the quality of service & user experience of other active users, applications or transactions. For example, a single report in a data warehouse environment can monopolize data access by demanding large amounts of data. Similarly, a CPU-bound application may consume all server processing power and starve other activities.

VRP allows balancing, regulating and manipulating the resource consumption of individual transactions, and by that, improving the overall quality of service, compliance with service level agreements, and the ultimate end user experience.

VRP technology overview

VRP is usually implemented at the Operating system in a way that is completely transparent to the application or transaction. The technology creates virtual resource lanes and redirects specific transactions to those lanes allowing them to take more or less resources according to the lane definition.

VRP technology can be implemented in any Operating system. Existing vendors in the market applied it on most of the Open operating system such as Windows, Red Hat, Suse, HP-UX, Solaris, tru64, AIX and others.

In any Operating system, the application is communicating with the Kernel in a different way which requires different implementation of VRP. Windows is managing resoruce allocation in a complete different way than Linux Kernel. Therefore applying virtual resoruce lanes implementation is usually kernel dependent. A safe implementation of VRP technology is usually made up of a mixture of several resource allocation techniques. VRP implementations depend on the transaction type, consumed resource or Kernel state. In a real and live system, Kernel state, transaction types and resource consumption are constantly changing and therefore the VRP technology should change the implemented technique accordingly in real-time.

References

^ Lipari, G.; Bini, E. (2–4 July 2003). "Resource partitioning among real-time applications". Real-Time Systems, 2003. Proceedings. 15th Euromicro Conference on. IEEE Xplore. pp. 151–158. ISBN 0-7695-1936-9. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)

[1] Lipari, G.; Bini, E. (2–4 July 2003). "Resource partitioning among real-time applications". Real-Time Systems, 2003. Proceedings. 15th Euromicro Conference on. IEEE Xplore. pp. 151–158. ISBN 0-7695-1936-9. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)

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