Patent ID: 8336052

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving specification of a plurality of processes, including one or more first processes encompassed by a first container strictly defined in relation to and corresponding to a first target computer program and one or more second processes encompassed by a second container strictly defined in relation to and corresponding to a second target computer program, such that the first container isolates the first processes associated with the first target computer program from the second processes associated with the second target computer program and the second container isolates the second processes associated with the second target computer program from the first processes associated with the first computer program; defining, by a first computer program running in user space of a computing environment, a workload as at least a sub-plurality of the processes, including selecting at least one of the first processes of the first container and selecting at least one of the second processes of the second container to define the workload across boundaries of the first container and of the second container, where at least one of the processes of the workload is unrelated to at least one other of the processes of the workload; creating a workload identifier corresponding to the workload, by a second computer program running in kernel memory space of the computing environment; associating the processes with the workload identifier, by the second computer program; in response to a request by the first computer program for metrics regarding the workload, collecting the metrics regarding the workload by collecting metrics regarding the processes that constitute the workload and that are associated with the workload identifier, by the second computer program; and reporting the metrics regarding the workload from the second computer program to the first computer program.