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US 2010/0077394 A1Published application
Coalescing periodic timer expiration in guest operating systems in a virtualized environment
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsHaiyong Wang, Brandon S. Baker, Shuvabrata Ganguly, Thomas D.I. Fahrig
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Techniques are disclosed for coalescing timer ticks generated by timers used to service guest operating systems executing in virtual machines. By coalescing timer ticks a logical processor can enter a low power mode thereby reducing power consumed by the system.
Claims20
A method for coalescing interrupts, comprising:
- receiving, by a first virtual timer of a first virtual machine, a request for interrupts from a first guest operating system executing on the first virtual machine;
- determining a system time for scheduling the interrupt for the first virtual machine, the system time for scheduling the interrupt based on an amount of system time to delay scheduling the interrupt;
- and
- storing an interrupt request for the first virtual machine, the interrupt request associated with the determined system time for scheduling the interrupt for the first virtual machine.
1 more element
A computer system comprising:
- circuitry for receiving a signal from a guest operating system executing on a virtual machine, the signal programming a virtual timer of the virtual machine to generate periodic interrupts;
- circuitry for determining, from the programmed virtual timer, an interrupt frequency for the virtual machine;
- circuitry for determining, from the interrupt frequency, a system time that is a multiple of the interrupt frequency;
- and
- circuitry for storing a pending interrupt in memory, the pending interrupt associated with the system time that is the multiple of the interrupt frequency.
2 more elements
A computer readable storage medium including computer executable instructions for coalescing interrupts, the computer readable storage medium comprising:
- instructions for receiving an interrupt;
- instructions for determining that a current system time is within an interrupt time range, the interrupt time range associated with at least two virtual machines, each virtual machine associated with a virtual processor;
- and
- instructions for sending virtual processor interrupts to the at least two virtual processors.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.