Patent ID: 8104033

Claim:
An apparatus for use in managing virtual machines, the apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory accessible by the processor, the memory storing software executable by the processor to: generate a request for at least one performance characteristic for a plurality of virtual machines, the plurality of virtual machines being associated with a processing group including a plurality of processing modules; receive a response to the generated request, the response comprising a plurality of performance characteristics for the plurality of virtual machines; determine whether a total processing capacity for the plurality of virtual machines is over or under utilized; based on at least one of the plurality of performance characteristics, determine whether each of the plurality of virtual machines are over or under utilized; in response to a determination that the total processing capacity for the plurality of machines is under utilized and that the processing capacity for none of the plurality of virtual machines is over utilized, remove at least one of the plurality of processing modules within the processing group with which the plurality of virtual machines is associated; and in response to a determination that the total processing capacity for the plurality of virtual machines is over utilized or that the processing capacity for one or more of the plurality of virtual machines is over utilized, adding at least one processing module to the plurality of processing modules within the processing group with which the plurality of virtual machines is associated, and wherein the at least one of the plurality of performance characteristics comprises a business priority rating associated with a selected virtual machine, the business priority rating based on a business need of the selected virtual machine and calculated based on a set priority rating assigned to the selected virtual machine and a plurality of set priority ratings assigned to each of a plurality of applications running on the selected virtual machine.