Consolidation Planning: Getting the Most from Your Virtualization Initiative

Consolidation Planning Getting the Most from Your Virtualization Initiatives Mike McKay Solutions Specialist Mike.McKay@novell.com

Session Overview Todays Data Center Virtualization adoption rates Consolidation ratios Consolidation Planning Introduction to consolidation planning The 4 steps to success The proof is in the virtual pudding PlateSpin Recon Demo ® 2 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today's Data Center

Virtulization in 2010 Most of the large and mid-tier enterprises are well along the path to virtualization Gartner Group stated in the December 2009 Data Center conference “The Global 500 has approx. 25% of x86 workloads virtualized” 2 common methods of implementing virtualization » Over provisioning of the virtual infrastructure (large initial investment) » Pay as you go virtual infrastrcture (purchase more capacity (nodes) as needed) Forrester research indicates typical server consolidation ratios of under 10 VM's per host initially. 4 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtualization Adoption 31+ Vms per physical host 21-30 Vms per physical host 10-20 Vms per physical host <10 Vms per physical host Firms implementing ITIL Production systems virtualized Virtual server host utilization target Stage 1: Stage 2: Stage 3: Stage 4: Acclimation Consolidation Process Policies and Improvement Automation 5 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Understanding Virtualization Adoption Stage 1: Acclimation Stage 2: Strategic Consolidation • Get comfortable with it as a concept and tool • Comfortable with concept, use, maturity, stability • Deploy for test/dev • Shift mindset from server to virtual server • Deploy for non-business-critical DR • Spread production deployments widely • Some production deployments – but tactical • Begin deployment for some business-critical DR • No change to operations processes • Painfully transition from server sprawl to virtual • Limited virtualization tool deployments server life-cycle management • Experimenting with Vmotion and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) Stage 3: Process Improvement Stage 4: Pooling and Automation • Using Vmotion, starting to trust DRS • Trust DRS • Can utilization rates be increased? • Implementing production policies for automation • Deploy for business-critical DR • Some mission-critical DR deploys • Begin bifurcating applications between • Pooling and internal cloud development priority and non-priority • Chargeback/utility tracking • Developing new operational efficiencies • SLA and Qos focus • Process improvement spreading/butting up against network, storage, security, development 6 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Consolidation Planning

How Consolidation Planning Works? Identify consolidation candidates based on performance criteria Create consolidation scenarios to distribute workloads across target servers Evaluate scenarios based on TCO, space, power and utilization Maximize utilization and adjust resource allocation to meet consolidation goals Collect data (inventory or performance) for consolidation candidates (workloads) 9 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Workload Profiling? The workload profile captures information about the encapsulated data, applications and operating systems residing on a physical or virtual host. Data Workload Profile Name Applications Resource Profile Application Profile Inventory CostSLA OS 10 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

One Time vs. Ongoing Consolidation Planning One-time Continual • Aggressive • Conservative • Try to virtualize as much • Multiple rounds of as possible at once virtualization, select • Goal – maximum cost saving “lowest hanging fruit” • One-time project • Goal – successful • Low upfront cost technology adoption (sometimes free) (IT and end-users) • Risks • Persistent software • Hardware can’t support the (plan when you walk number of servers virtualized with the latest information) • Hardware can’t support the • Software has a cost type of workloads virtualized 11 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

The 4 Steps to Success

The 4 Steps to Success 2 Inventory: Discover and inventory every physical server, virtual host and virtual machine in the data center Server type, CPU type, number of cores Name, IP address, domain Operating system, patches, hotfixes, applications Services Storage (total and available) 14 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

The 4 Steps to Success 3 Monitor: The resource utilization of each workload, physical server and virtual host for 30 days CPU utilization Storage utilization Memory utilization Network throughput Disk throughput Complete 24-hour profile, not just peak usage 15 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

The 4 Steps to Success 4 Analyze and Report: Detailed reports and analytics on actual and projected system performance “Good Consolidation Candidates” report Create consolidation scenarios with difference virtual host server models Set performance thresholds: 50% memory usage for example Project each scenario's server count, rack space usage, power consumption, cooling requirements, etc. Map physical servers to projected virtual hosts 16 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Proof is in the Virtual Pudding

Inventory Facts Server consolidation projects, tend to focus on Windows based platforms initially. – Low hanging fruit, servers nearing hardware lease, etc. Typically, servers with Local attached storage are prime candidates for server consolidation The smaller the number of cores and CPU's, the higher the consolidation ratio 19 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Utilization Facts Most Under-Utilized resource in the data center is CPU – Typically, server candidates are running at less then 30 % CPU utilization Memory is the next most under utilized resource – Memory Dedupe, available in VMware vShpere, is only the first step. Network, and disk utilization vary significantly across environments – Not typically an issue for SAN based virtual infrastructures 21 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Consolidation Candidate Facts Attack low hanging fruit first – CPU percent used less then 50% – MEMORY percent used less then 50% – MEMORY Pages/Sec less then 500 – Disk I/O percent less then 50% – Disk I/O MB/SEC less then 50 – Network I/O MB/SEC less then 10 23 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

Consolidation Scenario Facts When attacking low hanging fruit first, typical consolidation ratios are 20:1 Rack, power, and CO2 emissions are key drivers behind server consolidation 25 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

PlateSpin Recon Demo ®

Demo Overview Inventory and Monitoring Domain, network, and machine inventory Monitoring at physical and virtual layers Inventory and Utilization Reporting Inventory reports Utilization reports Value add reports Consolidation Planning 28 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Consolidation Planning: Getting the Most from Your Virtualization Initiative

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Consolidation Planning: Getting the Most from Your Virtualization Initiative Presentation Transcript