Patent ID: 8533712

Claim:
A computer program product to categorize a virtual machine stage, the computer program product comprising: a computer readable tangible storage device having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising: computer readable program code configured to start a virtual machine; computer readable program code configured to set factor-stage ranges, wherein for each combination factor and stage, a corresponding range is present, and wherein each range is at least as broad as a reset range; computer readable program code configured to set a frequency for sampling virtual machine metrics; computer readable program code configured to sample virtual machine metrics, consistent at a frequency, to form a plurality of virtual machine metrics for each factor; computer readable program code configured to apply a value to each range satisfied by each virtual machine metric, to form a plurality of stage-qualifying values corresponding to a range; computer readable program code configured to sum all stage-qualifying values corresponding to each stage, to form a stage likelihood for each of the stages; computer readable program code configured to select a stage corresponding to a highest stage likelihood, among the plurality of stage likelihoods, as a current stage; computer readable program code configured to determine if the current stage is different than a former stage; and computer readable program code configured to expand each range corresponding to the current stage, responsive to a determination that the current stage is different.