Patent ID: 7853953

Claim:
A method of processing a user request in accordance with multiple data centers, comprising the steps of: obtaining, at a first data center, a user request from a requesting user; classifying the user request based on one or more classification criterion; off-loading at least a portion of a workload associated with the classified user request to at least a second data center to be processed, wherein the off-loading step is at least based on one or more administrative policies associated with at least one of the first data center and the second data center; processing the workload such that the user request is satisfied in accordance with a service level agreement for the requesting user; wherein each of the multiple data centers is operative to process the user request; and determining, at the first data center, one or more metric values associated with one or more benefits to off-loading a portion of the workload, wherein the determining step further comprises: comparing the metric value to a threshold value and using a result of the comparison as a trigger to initiate workload off-loading; and adjusting the threshold value, wherein the threshold value adjusting step further comprises applying a constant decay factor to the threshold value, and resetting the threshold value to an original value when the step of off-loading the portion of the workload is unsuccessful; wherein the off-loading step further comprises causing at least one resource associated with the second data center to be made available to a resource scheduler associated with the first data center such that at least a portion of a workload associated with the classified user request can be routed directly to the at least one resource associated with the second data center.