Patent ID: 8793482

Claim:
A computer program product for managing configuration parameters of a computer system which executes user tasks on behalf of multiple respective users, comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code being configured to: (a) automatically measure at least one workrate metric to determine a workrate corresponding to an initial configuration of said computer system, said computer system being partitioned into a plurality of logical partitions, each logical partition of said plurality of logical partitions having assigned to it a respective portion of resources of said computer system, each said user task executing in a respective logical partition of said plurality of logical partitions and using only the respective potion of resources of said computer system assigned to the respective logical partition, said workrate being an instantaneous value representing an amount of work per unit of time being processed by at least one logical partition of said computer system at a particular point in time, said workrate metric being an actual measurement representing said workrate; (b) automatically incrementally alter a value of at least one quantitative configuration parameter of said computer system according to a previously determined increment to generate a modified configuration of said computer system, said at least one quantitative configuration parameter comprising at least one parameter defining at least one of: (a) a respective workload assigned to each of a plurality of said logical partitions, and (b) a respective resource allocated to each of a plurality of said logical partitions; (c) after a pre-determined measurement interval has elapsed from (b), automatically measure said at least one workrate metric to determine a workrate corresponding to said modified configuration of said computer system; (d) automatically compare the workrates determined by (a) and (c) to determine an incremental effect of said (b) with respect to at least one optimization criterion; (e) responsive to (d), automatically determine an increment of said at least one configuration parameter for use in a subsequent iteration; and (f) iteratively repeat said (b) through said (e) using the increment of said at least one configuration parameter determined by said (e).