Apparatus and method for capacity planning for data center server consolidation and workload reassignment
A server migration tool used to construct data center migration scenarios allowing for a user to rapidly manipulate a large number of input parameters required to describe a transformation from one data center configuration to a new data center configuration. The tool then performs the transformation and allows the user to interact with new data center configuration to understand its performance. A novel parameterization, speed independent service demand (SISD), greatly facilitates scaling performance metrics between different hardware platforms.
1. A method of capacity planning for server migration from a first server system characterized by a source configuration comprising a set of source parameters, an original set of workloads and a set of service demands associated to a set of devices, to a second server system, the method comprising:
specifying a destination configuration of the second server system;
transforming the set of source parameters into a set of destination parameters for the destination configuration by scaling a service demand in the set of service demands into a speed independent service demand parameter according to:
choosing a speed benchmark parameter associated with a device in the set of devices, and
multiplying the speed benchmark parameter by the service demand to arrive at the speed independent service demand parameter; and
deriving a performance model for the destination configuration based on the set of destination parameters and the speed independent service demand parameter.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein specifying a destination configuration further comprises:
consolidating a set of source server in the first server system into a set of destination servers in the second server system;
reassigning a workload in the original set of workloads to the set of destination servers;
changing a source server configuration into a destination server configuration; and
scaling the workload.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein consolidating a set of source server further comprises:
defining a destination data center scenario; and,
selecting a new workload reassignment from a list of premises defined reassignments.
4. The method of claim 2 wherein reassigning a workload comprises:
defining a destination data center scenario;
choosing a first workload to reassign from a first server; and
reassigning the first workload to a second server according to the destination data center scenario.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning a single server as a source server and a destination server.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein transforming comprises:
selecting a desired number of CPUs in the destination configuration; and,
adjusting a performance parameter according to the desired number of CPUs.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein transforming comprises calculating an increased memory usage as a result of a workload change.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein specifying a destination configuration further comprises specifying a thread level parallelism.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein specifying a destination configuration further comprises:
facilitating the selection of a source server from the first server system in a graphical user interface; and
facilitating the selection of a destination server for the second server system in the graphical user interface.
10. The method of claim 9 wherein specifying a destination configuration further comprises:
facilitating the specification of an attached device for the destination server in the graphical user interface; and,
facilitating the specification of a threshold profile for the attached device in the graphical user interface.
11. The method of claim 10 wherein facilitating the specification of an attached device further comprises changing one of:
a CPU device from the source configuration;
a memory configuration from the source configuration;
a disk drive device from the source configuration; and
a network interface device from the source configuration.
12. The method of claim 1 wherein choosing a speed benchmark parameter includes choosing a CPU SPEC rating as the speed benchmark parameter.