International Business Machines Corporation

Edward M Howard

Hugh Edward Hockett

Rohith Kottamangalam Ashok

Roy Frank Brabson

Matt Richard Hogstrom

Antonio Abbondanzio

Adam Robert Geiger

A method, system and computer program product for updating hardware and software components of a cloud computing environment. An administrative server monitors the usage statistics (e.g., compute utilization) of the hardware and software components of the cloud computing environment. Upon receiving user-selected thresholds for the usage statistics, which may be stored in a profile, the administrative server applies a user-provided patch to the hardware or software component whose threshold criteria has been met. Alternatively, the administrative server may automatically update the hardware and software components based on determined minimum usage points (i.e., minimum levels of usage activity) using the monitored usage statistics of the hardware and software components. In this manner, updates to the hardware and software components of the cloud computing environment can occur at optimal times, where the usage activity is low, thereby lessening the negative impact on servicing the user's computing requirements from the update.

Updating hardware and software components of cloud computing environment at optimal times

A method, system and computer program product for performing maintenance operations on a cloud computing node. An administrative server receives an indication that a maintenance operation is to be performed on a cloud computing node. The administrative server identifies which virtual machine(s) on the cloud computing node will be affected by the maintenance operation. The administrative server relocates the virtual machine(s) to be affected by the maintenance operation to other suitable cloud computing node(s) prior to the maintenance operation being performed. The administrative server then performs the maintenance operation on the cloud computing node. The virtual machine(s) may be relocated back to the cloud computing node after the maintenance operation is completed in response to a need to rebalance resources in such a manner. In this manner, maintenance operations may be performed on a cloud computing node without requiring to stop all the virtual machines in the node.

Performing maintenance operations on cloud computing node without requiring to stop all virtual machines in the node

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Raleigh, NC, United States of America

Edward M Howard