Methods and systems to reclaim capacity of unused resources of a distributed computing system

A computer system to reclaim capacity of unused virtual resources assigned to a virtual object of a distributed computing system, the system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• one or more data-storage devices;
• and
• machine-readable instructions stored in the one or more data-storage devices that when executed using the one or more processors controls the system to perform operations comprising:
• collecting streams of metric data in a historical window, each stream of metric data representing usage of one of the virtual resources assigned to the virtual object;
• computing a sequence of active status metric data in the historical window based on the streams of metric data, each active status metric data value indicating active or inactive status of the virtual object in the historical window;
• computing forecasted active status metric data in a forecast interval based on the sequence of active status metric data, each forecasted active status metric data value indicating active or inactive status of the virtual object in the forecast interval;
• and
• assigning the virtual resources assigned to the virtual object to a prospectively active virtual object in the forecast interval based on the forecasted active status metric data values indicating inactive status of the virtual object in the forecast interval.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with machine-readable instructions that implement a method carried out by one or more processors of a computer system to perform operations comprising:

• collecting streams of metric data in a historical window, each stream of metric data representing usage of a virtual resource assigned to a virtual object;
• computing a sequence of active status metric data in the historical window based on the streams of metric data, each active status metric data value indicating active or inactive status of the virtual object in the historical window;
• computing forecasted active status metric data in a forecast interval based on the sequence of active status metric data, each forecasted active status metric data value indicating active or inactive status of the virtual object in the forecast interval;
• and
• reassigning the virtual resources assigned to the virtual object to a prospectively active virtual object in the forecast interval based on the forecasted active status metric data values indicating inactive status of the virtual object in the forecast interval.