Methods and systems to proactively manage usage of computational resources of a …

This invention describes a software system that helps manage computer resources in a large network of computers (a distributed system). It works by constantly looking at how resources are being used, first identifying and removing long-term trends using linear regression, then building statistical models from the remaining data. When it needs to predict future resource needs, it combines the trend with the best-fitting model to forecast usage, allowing the system to automatically adjust how virtual parts of the network use resources.