Use minimal variance to distribute disk slices to avoid over-commitment

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, containing a set of instructions which, in response to execution by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method for balancing disk usage in a virtualized computing environment, the method comprising:

• estimating, by a storage manager configured to manage the virtualized computing environment, an allocation rate for a virtual disk in the virtualized computing environment that is thin-provisioned based on a plurality of physical disks;
• generating, by the storage manager, a corresponding predicted-disk-utilization for each of the plurality of physical disks based on the allocation rate;
• for a first physical disk selected from the plurality of physical disks and having a corresponding predicted-disk-utilization exceeding a predetermined-utilization-threshold, identifying, by the storage manager, the virtual disk having data stored in the first physical disk;
• generating, by the storage manager, a storage-balancing policy for splitting the virtual disk into a specific number of disk slices and distributing the specific number of disk slices to a subset of candidate physical disks selected from the plurality of physical disks, wherein the storage-balancing policy provides a minimum data-movement-variance for moving data from the first physical disk to the subset of the candidate physical disks;
• and
• executing, by the storage manager, the storage-balancing policy to split the virtual disk into the specific number of disk slices and distribute the specific number of disk slices to the subset of candidate physical disks.

A system for balancing disk usage in a virtualized computing environment, the system comprising:

• a plurality of physical disks;
• a virtual disk thin-provisioned based on the plurality of physical disks;
• and
• a storage manager coupled with the virtual disk and the plurality of physical disks, wherein the storage manager is configured to
• generate predicted-disk-utilizations for the plurality of physical disks,
• in response to a determination that a corresponding predicted-disk-utilization for a specific physical disk selected from the plurality of physical disks will exceed a predetermined-utilization-threshold, generate a storage-balancing policy for splitting the virtual disk into a specific number of disk slices and distributing the specific number of disk slices to a subset of candidate physical disks selected from the plurality of physical disks, wherein the storage-balancing policy provides a minimum data-movement-variance for distributing of the specific number of disk slices to the subset of the candidate physical disks, and
• execute the storage-balancing policy to split the virtual disk into the specific number of disk slices and distribute the specific number of disk slices to the subset of candidate physical disks.