Patent ID: 8104040

Claim:
A method for automatically adding or reducing capacity to a computer for a workload, the method comprising: receiving metric information, defined in a policy, about a workload running on a computer and configurable available additional capacity of the computer; retrieving capacity information for the computer, wherein the capacity information is serialized in a serialized list in accordance with the policy; calculating a demand for the workload, wherein the demand is a request for additional capacity of the computer, a request to reduce capacity of the computer, or a request to retain already activated additional capacity of the computer; analyzing the demand for the workload to determine whether the demand is characterized as a speed request or a processor request, wherein the speed request comprises an increase in a speed level for the computer, and wherein the processor request comprises an increase in a number of processors for the computer; analyzing the demand for the workload to determine whether the demand is met; determining an appropriate capacity, from the serialized list, to add to the computer for the workload based on the analysis or determining the appropriate capacity to decrease for the workload based on the analysis; activating the appropriate capacity of the computer for the workload or deactivating the appropriate capacity, in response to the determining the appropriate capacity; wherein the serialized list comprises a plurality of steps, each step comprises a speed and number of processors in accordance with the policy; and wherein determining the appropriate capacity comprises selecting one of the plurality of steps in the serialized list.