Patent ID: 8255907

Claim:
An apparatus for use in managing virtual machines, the apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory accessible by the processor, the memory storing software executable by the processor to: generate a request for at least one performance characteristic for a plurality of virtual machines, each of the plurality of virtual machines being associated with a processing group including a plurality of processing modules; receive a response to the generated request, the response comprising a plurality of performance characteristics for the plurality of virtual machines, wherein the plurality of performance characteristics comprise a business priority rating associated with each of the plurality of virtual machines, wherein each business priority rating is based on a business need of a selected virtual machine and is calculated based on a set priority rating assigned to the selected virtual machine and a plurality of set priority ratings assigned to each of a plurality of applications running on the selected virtual machine; based on the business need of the selected virtual machine, determine whether the selected virtual machine is over or under utilized; in response to a determination that the selected virtual machine is under utilized, remove at least one processing module within the processing group with which the selected virtual machine is associated; and in response to a determination that the selected virtual machine is over utilized, adding at least one processing module within the processing group with which the selected virtual machine is associated.