Dynamic scheduling for virtual storage devices

Abstract

Embodiments described herein relate to adjusting performance of a virtualization layer to reduce underutilization of a physical device. The virtualization layer virtualizes access to the device for a VM. When a guest in the VM makes a request to a virtual device, the virtualization layer and the device work together to satisfy the request. Some time is spent by the virtualization layer (software/CPU time), for instance delivering the request from the VM to the physical device, mapping the request from the virtual device to the physical device, etc. Additional time is spent by the device in performing the request (device time). The software/CPU time relative to the device time serves as a basis for deciding whether to increase or decrease processing capacity of the virtualization layer (or a component thereof), thus reducing underutilization of the device and over-provisioning of processing capacity to the virtualization layer.