Best Practices for Best Practices for Datacenter Hardware Datacenter Hardware

UtilizationUtilization

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

• d@davepayne.com

• 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

    Redundancy Complexity Availability Cost

Physical OS ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

  HW ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Physical OS ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑

  HW ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑

Virtual OS ↑ ↓ ↑ ↓

  vHW ↑ ↓ ↑ ↓*

  pHW ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑

* Considers the cost slice of the hardware consumed by a VM.

ManagePower Plant

Instant Provisioning+

Web Apps

App A

App B

Easy Scaling+

CRM

Bus Apps BI Apps

Exchange File / PrintCompute Plant

Com

mon

Resou

rce

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?

InventoryGet the server vitalsOS Info

Compute Capacity -- CPU/RAM

Disk – Logical/Physica -- Used vs free space

Applications/Services

Hardware Dependencies

Baseline UtilizationMeasure 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  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) -* May increase based on density requirements - more power, more cooling in existing facility

Bonus: Cost Take Outs

Where the real money is foundThings 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

Versus80% 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?