Patent ID: 7194645

Claim:
A method for autonomic policy-based thermal management in a data processing system having at least one processor, the method comprising: (1) selecting at least one algorithm from a plurality of algorithms to manipulate one or more effectors, in the data processing system, based on a user policy; (2) in response to selecting an algorithm for performance, performing the following steps: (3) monitoring a temperature of the data processing system to form a monitored temperature; (4) determining if the monitored temperature is above a warning temperature; (5) in response to the monitored temperature being above the warning temperature: (a) determining if at least one effector is above a minimum acceptable value; (b) in response to the at least one effector being above the minimum acceptable value, decreasing the at least one effector by an incremental amount according to a selected algorithm; (c) in response to determining that the monitored temperature is above the warning temperature, returning to step (5)(a); and (d) in response to determining that the monitored temperature is below the warning temperature, returning to step (3); and (6) in response to the monitored temperature being below the warning temperature: (e) determining if the at least one effector is below a maximum acceptable value; (f) in response to the at least one effector being below the maximum acceptable value, increasing the at least one effector by the incremental amount according to the selected algorithm; and (g) returning to step (4).