Patent ID: 8521855

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, by a server machine at predefined time intervals, client utilization data, the client utilization data including client processing unit utilization or client memory utilization data for each of a plurality of active client machines coupled to the server over a network; determining, by the server machine, an overall utilization parameter for the plurality of active client machines based upon the received client utilization data at a time interval; determining, by the server machine, a rate at which the overall utilization parameter is changing in response to the overall utilization parameter being above or below a threshold; determining, by the server machine, how many client machines to transition between an active mode and a sleep mode based upon the rate and in response to the overall utilization parameter being above or below the threshold; and sending a transition signal from the server machine to the determined number of client machines to transition between an active mode and a sleep mode, wherein, when the overall utilization parameter is above the threshold, the transition signal is a wakeup transition signal and the determined number of client machines is a number of suspended client machines to transition to the active mode based upon the rate at which the overall utilization parameter is increasing, and wherein, when the overall utilization parameter is below the threshold, the transition signal is a sleep transition signal and the determined number of client machines is a number of the active client machines to transition to the sleep mode based upon the rate at which the overall utilization parameter is decreasing.