Intelligent virtual machine (VM) re-location

A virtual machine (VM) utilizing data processing system configured for intelligent VM relocation comprising:

• multiple different physical machines, each having a configuration to host one or more VMs, each being communicatively coupled to the other over a data communications network;
• and,
• an intelligent VM relocation module executing in memory of a computer, the module comprising program code enabled during execution to select a set of VMs for relocation over the data communications network from one or more source ones of the physical machines to one or more target ones of the physical machines, to compute in memory of the computer a VM mobility cost for relocating the set of the VMs from the one or more source ones of the physical machines to the one or more target ones of the physical machines, to determine whether or not the VM mobility cost exceeds available resources in the data communications network, and to relocate the set of the VMs utilizing binpacking only if it is determined that the VM mobility cost does not exceed the available resources of the data communications network, the binpacking comprising generating a list of target physical machines to which the VMs are able to be relocated, computing the VM mobility cost for the VMs in respect to each of the target physical machines, sorting the list based upon the computed VM mobility cost for each of the target physical machines, and binpacking the VMs into the target physical machines in an order specified by the sorted list.

A computer program product for intelligent virtual machine (VM) relocation, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising:
• computer readable program code for selecting a set of VMs for relocation over a data communications network within a data center or across data centers from one or more source physical machines to one or more target physical machines;
• computer readable program code for computing in memory of a computer in the data center a VM mobility cost for relocating the set of the VMs from the one or more source physical machines to the one or more target physical machines;
• computer readable program code for determining whether or not the VM mobility cost exceeds available resources in the data communications network;
• and,
• computer readable program code for relocating the set of the VMs utilizing binpacking only if it is determined that the VM mobility cost does not exceed the available resources of the data communications network, the binpacking comprising generating a list of target physical machines to which the VMs are able to be relocated, computing the VM mobility cost for the VMs in respect to each of the target physical machines, sorting the list based upon the computed VM mobility cost for each of the target physical machines, and binpacking the VMs into the target physical machines in an order specified by the sorted list.