Managing virtual workload priorities in a computing environment

A computing apparatus comprising:

• one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media;
• a processing system operatively coupled to the one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media;
• and
• program instructions stored on the one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media that, when executed by the processing system, direct the computing apparatus to:
• determine when preemption is required to deploy a virtual machine in a computing environment;
• when preemption is required to deploy the virtual machine, identify, in the computing environment, one or more hosts of a plurality of hosts capable of supporting the virtual machine by stopping at least one preemptible virtual machine of one or more preemptible virtual machines on a corresponding host of the one or more hosts;
• prioritize the one or more hosts based on a quantity of preemptible virtual machines on each of the one or more hosts, the prioritization giving a higher priority to a larger quantity of preemptible virtual machines;
• select a host from the one or more hosts to deploy the virtual machine based on the prioritization of the one or more hosts;
• stop the at least one preemptible virtual machine on the host, by performing at least one of powering off, destroying, and suspending of the at least one preemptible virtual machine on the host, and preserving physical processing and memory resources of the host that have been used by the at least one preemptible virtual machine;
• and
• deploy the virtual machine on the host, by abstracting at least part of the preserved physical processing and memory resources of the host that have been used by the at least one preemptible virtual machine and providing the abstracted physical processing and memory resources to the virtual machine.