US 2011/0035751 A1 · Soft Real-Time Load Balancer

Abstract

The present disclosure is based on a multi-core or multi-processor virtualized environment that comprises both time-sensitive and non-time-sensitive tasks. The present disclosure describes techniques that use a plurality of criteria to choose a processing resource that is to execute tasks. The present disclosure further describes techniques to re-schedule queued tasks from one processing resource to another processing resource, based on a number of criteria. Through load balancing techniques, the present invention both (i) favors the processing of soft real-time tasks arising from media servers and applications, and (ii) prevents “starvation” of the non-real-time general computing applications that co-exist with the media applications in a virtualized environment. These techniques, in the aggregate, favor the processing of soft real-time tasks while also reserving resources for non-real-time tasks. These techniques manage multiple processing resources to balance the competing demands of soft real-time tasks and of non-real-time tasks.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

scheduling by a data-processing system a first task to be executed on a first processor, wherein the first task is at the head of a first queue that comprises a plurality of tasks to be executed on the first processor;
scheduling by the data-processing system a second task to be executed on a second processor, wherein the second task is at the head of a second queue that comprises a plurality of tasks to be executed on the second processor;
and
executing the second task on the first processor before the first task when:
(i) the first task and the second task are of equal priority, and
(ii) the first task is a non-time-sensitive task, and
(iii) the second task is a time-sensitive task.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Soft Real-Time Load Balancer

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Soft Real-Time Load Balancer

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25