Patent ID: 7769864

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: monitoring, by a cluster agent, a node of a cluster of nodes of a distributed computing system that work together to perform a function, the node comprising a virtual machine provided by a virtualization software layer of the distributed computing system and comprising resources of one or more physical processors of the distributed computing system; detecting, by the cluster agent, a parameter change to the virtual machine caused by an action of the virtualization software layer, the parameter change comprising increasing or decreasing a quantity of the one or more physical processors at the cluster while a number of work processes within the cluster remains constant, the detecting comprising comparing results of successive instances of a benchmarking routine, the benchmarking routine comprising determining the quantity of physical processors at the cluster as equal to a maximum number of runs of a single-processor benchmark program that the cluster is capable of executing in parallel without an increase in an execution time to complete the runs; and adapting the cluster based on the detected parameter change.