ENERGY BASED RESOURCE ALLOCATION ACROSS VIRTUALIZED MACHINES AND DATA CENTERS

A system and computer program product allocates energy entitlement to a logical partition (LPAR) executing on a data processing system. An energy entitlement allocation (EEA) utility enables an administrator to specify a minimum and/or maximum energy entitlement and An LPAR priority. When the relevant LPARs utilize the respective minimum energy entitlement based on respective energy consumption, the EEA utility determines whether the LPAR (and other LPARs) has satisfied a respective maximum energy entitlement. When the LPAR has not satisfied its maximum energy entitlement, the EEA utility allocates unused energy entitlement from the data processing system to the LPAR, according to an allocation policy. Additionally, the EEA utility dynamically adjusts a priority level for the LPAR to efficiently control resource allocation, according to the LPAR's energy consumption relative to its energy entitlement. In addition, the EEA utility is able to transfer unused energy entitlement to other data processing systems requiring further alloction of energy entitlement.