Cost efficient and on-demand pool of running instances in a virtual machine environment

A computer program product comprising computer-readable program code to be executed by one or more processors when retrieved from a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the program code including instructions to:

• determine, by a system, whether a number of virtual machine load balancers that are in a pool is less than a specified number;
• create, by the system, a calculated number of virtual machine load balancers for the pool in response to a determination that the number of virtual machine load balancers that are in the pool is less than the specified number, the calculated number being equal to the specified number minus the number of virtual machine load balancers that are in the pool;
• receive, by the system, a request to create a virtual machine environment that requires at least one virtual machine load balancer;
• and
• allocate, by the system, a virtual machine load balancer from the pool to the virtual machine environment.

A method comprising:

• determining, by a system, whether a number of virtual machine load balancers that are in a pool is less than a specified number;
• creating, by the system, a calculated number of virtual machine load balancers for the pool in response to a determination that the number of virtual machine load balancers that are in the pool is less than the specified number, the calculated number being equal to the specified number minus the number of virtual machine load balancers that are in the pool;
• receiving, by the system, a request to create a virtual machine environment that requires at least one virtual machine load balancer;
• and
• allocating, by the system, a virtual machine load balancer from the pool to the virtual machine environment.