Best Practices For Data Center Hardware Utilization

Best Practices for Datacenter Hardware Utilization I get the theory, now how do I do it?!?

Best Practices for Datacenter Hardware Utilization I get the theory, now how do I do it?!?
Presented by Dave Payne
CTO
Xcedex
[email_address]
www.davepayne.com

Abstract
This session touches on the current benefits of virtualization in the data center, how to determine where to start and how to gather the data to support a business case to implement it.

Abstract
Beyond the virtualization hype, what's the real opportunity and how do I know if it's right for me?
How to quantify a business case around virtualization -- what are all the costs and how long does it take?
Which of my systems are good candidates to go virtual and how do I size a new environment?
How does virtualization allow for a new economic view of IT -- the consumable server and ongoing management?

What I Assume You (The Audience) Knows
You’re neck deep in IT management, administration or data center operations of some sort.
You understand what makes up a data center.
Servers, storage and racks don’t conjure up images of a busy restaurant.
You get virtualization.

“ Tell me please, which way I ought to go?”
“ That depends a good deal on where you want to get to ,” said the Cat.
“ I don’t much care where——” said Alice.
“ Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—— so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “ Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Know Where You Want To Go
If you don’t know quite where you want to go, then don’t expect much out of a virtualized datacenter.
If you want to know where to go, I’ll help you build your own map today.

By The End Of The Session, You’ll Know The Following:
Where to find the biggest bang for your virtual buck.
How to determine which of your systems can be virtualized.
The key data points to consider when building a DC consolidation business case.
A view of IT economics and the consumable server.

Where Are The Opportunities?
Look for the take outs :
What do we care about?
Executives = COST | redux in capex/opex
Management = Align budget use to fit business goals
Engineers = Apply technology to solve the problem better
Administrator = TIME | Less effort, more done

Cost Take Outs
Capital expenses (capex)
Hardware -- align hardware capacity with true demand.
Software --consolidate the stack and save on licensing
Operating expenses (opex)
Administrative -- streamline process, refocus labor
Not a headcount reduction play!

Cost Take Outs -- DR
Today:
Expensive and complex
Disaster recovery/Business continuity/High availability
Virtualize:
Reduces cost and complexity
Delivers DR/BC/HA to more systems

Cost Take Outs -- DR * Considers the cost slice of the hardware consumed by a VM. Redundancy Complexity Availability Cost Physical OS ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ HW ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Physical OS ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ HW ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ Virtual OS ↑ ↓ ↑ ↓ vHW ↑ ↓ ↑ ↓ * pHW ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑

Manage Power Plant Instant Provisioning + Web Apps App A App B Easy Scaling + CRM Bus Apps BI Apps Exchange File / Print Compute Plant Common Resource Pool Resource Pooling

Think Like A Utility
Standardize offerings to customers
There is margin in consistency
Multi-tenancy
Oversubscription is possible w/out SLA violation
Leverage buying power for raw materials
Understand the unit cost of your environment.
Figure out your base unit of measure and translate the function of your utility around it.

How To Get Started?

Inventory
Get the server vitals
OS Info
Compute Capacity -- CPU/RAM
Disk – Logical/Physica -- Used vs free space
Applications/Services
Hardware Dependencies

Baseline Utilization
Measure Demand
Capture a business cycle – (35 days)
Counters
CPU
Memory
Network
Disk

Candidate Selection
Pick your candidates
Calculate Peak Average
Compare the aggregate usage to VM capacity
Select candidates that fall below the threshold

Virtual Infrastructure Sizing
Target Host Selection
Cluster of hosts form a pool of resources
Fill the pool up with your workloads
Compare demand scores to pool capacity
Keep resource utilization within n+n redundancy requirements

VI Storage Sizing
Consider the impact of centralizing disk
Measure and aggregate usage
Space
Logical disk size, used space, free space.
Usage
Disk IOps
Disk Read & Write Bytes/sec
Right Size storage in flight
Take from the pool what you need, add capacity on demand

Business Case Development
Consider cost across the datacenter
Compare current to future spend
Areas to gather data
Data Center Server Hardware
Data Center Server Storage
Data Center Server Networking
Data Center Server Power and Cooling Consumption
Data Center Server Space
Data Center Server Provisioning
Data Center Server Administration
Disaster Recovery Site Investment
Data Center Server Disaster Recovery (Indirect)
Data Center Server Downtime (Indirect)

Business Case Development
* May increase based on density requirements - more power, more cooling in existing facility
Likely Change in cost by virtualizing Data Center Server Hardware ↓ Data Center Server Storage + ↑ Data Center Server Networking ↓ Data Center Server Power and Cooling Consumption * Data Center Server Space ↓ Data Center Server Provisioning ↓ Data Center Server Administration +/- Disaster Recovery Site Investment ↓ Data Center Server Disaster Recovery (Indirect) ↓ Data Center Server Downtime (Indirect) -

Bonus: Cost Take Outs

Where the real money is found
Things we know:
Moore’s Law states that compute capacity doubles every 2 years
Enterprise software pricing remains fairly constant, and is typically priced based on CPUs
Hardware keeps getting cheaper

Virtualization – the hangover
Immediate benefits are reduction in spending – prices are the same!
The new low cost becomes the new high cost very quickly
Don’t confuse less spending with margin savings
Big savings come from cost take out and margin reduction

Software/Licensing
Understand difference between software and licensing
Software It’s the .exe’s Licensing It’s what you pay to use the .exe’s Versus 80% Gross Margin

“ Go Long on Software and Short on Hardware”
Software costs much more than hardware
Compare: 1 CPU SQL Enterprise = $25,000 1 Intel XEON = $2000
Assume:
Today: 1 CPU core can do 1000 SQL Transactions per second (TPS)
18 months from now: 1 CPU core can do 2000 SQL TPS
Analysis
Swap in new hardware and DOUBLE your transactions per second while spending NO MORE on software
-Dan Keidel, Ravello Analytics

Software/Licensing
Licensing is often the largest cost take out opportunity
Knowledge is power
Steps:
Get an accurate inventory
Servers
Software counts
Gather usage statistics
Count of .exe’s in use
Count of .exe’s on CPUs
Count of how long .exe’s are executing
Compare actual usage to T&C’s of license agreement
If there’s a delta, re-negotiate terms!

Consumption based pricing
Most open systems software vendors price on capacity, such as per CPU
Most companies have distributed systems priced for capacity but isolated onto separate systems for reliability
Result is paying for much more capacity than is used
Understand the current usage, show it to the vendors, and work with them up for consumption based pricing
Cost take outs of 20-80% of software contracts have been realized by others

How do you do it?
Virtualization is the key
Virtualization abstracts apps/OS from hardware
Allows easy swap of components without disrupting production (Vmotion)
Must get a handle on key metrics
Accurate inventory of systems
Performance metrics over time
Capacity planning a must - understand trends for future demand
Understanding of what is available on the market, and associated pricing
Make the vendors your partners, not enemies
Understanding your capacity needs over time is key
Share your projections with them – then dictate your price
You have a stronger negotiation point – they lock up future business
You need them to have capacity available for you on demand

Questions?

Best Practices For Data Center Hardware Utilization

by Dave Payne on Dec 11, 2009

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