Patent ID: 7945908

Claim:
A method for a computer system that has host hardware, at least one guest supervisory software entity, and a software platform that runs on the host hardware, in which: in a host reference frame, the host hardware generates primary host signals indicating completion of a host resource quantum; in a guest reference frame, the guest supervisory software entity senses receipt of guest signals indicating completion of guest resource quanta, the guest supervisory software entity allocating each guest resource quantum to one of a plurality of guest processes; wherein the receipt of the guest signals and allocation of the corresponding guest resource quanta may be unsynchronized with the generation of the corresponding host quanta such that a backlog of resource quantum is created; wherein the software platform implements a first policy for handling the resource quantum backlog; the method comprising: designating one or more guest processes as sponge processes; sensing, an occurrence of a backlog of resource quantum due to unprocessed timer interrupts in a guest while the guest is descheduled; and delivering, in response to the sensing of the backlog, a guest signal to the guest supervisory software entity while one of the sponge processes is executing in the guest so that at least one of the resource quantum of the backlog is allocated to one of the sponge processes; whereby backlogged resource quanta are not allocated to guest processes other than the sponge processes to avoid improperly charging a guest process with resource quanta that were not consumed by the guest process.