Cloud Computing: IBM Solves Virtual Machine ‘Noisy Neighbor’ Problem

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

IBM, the original inventor of virtualization in computing, has patented a method of moving virtual machines around dynamically to ensure each has the amount of network bandwidth that it needs. The technique can be used to load balance large conglomerations of virtual machines from a bandwidth perspective, instead of server CPU and memory perspective.

By shifting virtual machines that need more access to network bandwidth away from virtual machines that are already making heavy use of it, the virtual environment is used in a more efficient and intelligent way, approximating fuller use of all resources. In effect, IBM has announced that Patent #8,352,953, its method for "dynamically provisioning virtual machines," has solved what Netflix defined on Amazon Web Services as the "noisy neighbor" problem…

Netflix does nearly 100% of its computing on Amazon. In the first two years of use, it concluded noisy neighbors or bandwidth-demanding virtual machines on a shared host stole a small percentage of compute cycles from its virtual machines as their CPUs waited on idle for access to the network. It developed tools that detected noisy neighbors, killed off the Netflix virtual machine on that server and moved it somewhere else. Netflix concluded in some cases the penalty was too great to tolerate, said Netflix cloud architect Adrian Cockcroft at Cloud Connect in Santa Clara, Calif., in 2011…

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