Virtual machine load balancing

A system for reducing VM proliferation, the system comprising:

• one or more computing devices comprising computer hardware, the one or more computing devices configured to:
• receive a job request;
• determine an expected load for the job request;
• select a threshold load based at least partially on the expected load for the job request;
• access load information for each VM from a set of available VMs;
• identify, based at least partially on the load information for each VM, a subset of VMs from the set of available VMs;
• wherein each VM in the subset of VMs is associated with a load that is below the threshold load;
• and
• select a VM from the subset of VMs and assign a job associated with the job request to the selected VM.

A system for reducing VM proliferation, the system comprising:

• one or more computing devices comprising computer hardware, the one or more computing devices configured to:
• receive a job request;
• determine an expected load for the job request;
• select a threshold load based at least partially on the expected load for the job request;
• access load information for each VM from a set of available VMs;
• identify, based at least partially on the load information for each VM, a subset of VMs from the set of available VMs;
• wherein each VM in the subset of VMs is associated with a load that is below the threshold load;
• and
• create a new VM when the subset of VMs is a zero subset;
• and
• assign the job associated with the job request to the new VM.