Patent ID: 8516478

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising executable instructions stored thereon to cause one or more processors to: identify a scanning task to be processed on a first virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines; determine a subset of the plurality of virtual machines that have a scanner process; predetermine, prior to processing the scanning task, a first, second, and subsequent amount of processing based on a number of virtual machines determined to be in the subset, the first, second, and subsequent amount of processing to be executed respectively on a first, second, and subsequent virtual machine of the subset; determine a load on a system of the first virtual machine, wherein the load is compared to a first high threshold and a second low threshold; perform a first adjustment, prior to processing the scanning task, to the first, second, and subsequent amount of processing based on the comparison of the load on the system with the first high threshold and the second low threshold; perform a second adjustment, prior to processing the scanning task, to the first, second, and subsequent amount of processing based on an activity limit of each of the first, second, and subsequent virtual machine of the subset; process the first amount of the identified scanning task within the first virtual machine; process the second amount of the identified scanning task within the second virtual machine; and process subsequent predetermined amounts of the identified scanning task within subsequent virtual machines of the subset until processing of the identified scanning task has been completed.