Tideway Foundation Consolidation

Tideway Systems Inc., 2008 Page 1 of 22

Virtualisation and Consolidation Reports and Outputs

Version No 1.0


1. Contents 1. Contents ............................................................................................................................ 2

2. Preface............................................................................................................................... 3

2.1. Purpose........................................................................................................................... 3

2.2. Document History ........................................................................................................... 3

3. Identification & Prioritisation .......................................................................................... 4

3.1. System Identification....................................................................................................... 5

3.1.1. Example Server Detail ............................................................................................. 5

3.1.2. End of Life Operating Systems................................................................................ 6

3.1.3. Breakdown by Hardware Model .............................................................................. 7

3.1.4. Power Consumption ................................................................................................ 8

3.1.5. Heat Output ............................................................................................................. 9

3.1.6. Low Compute Power ............................................................................................. 10

3.1.7. Identify Infrastructure Software.............................................................................. 12

3.2. Prioritisation .................................................................................................................. 13

3.2.1. Link from Server to Business Service.................................................................... 13

3.2.2. Application Dependency Map for Mail Hub ........................................................... 14

3.2.3. View Extended Dependencies............................................................................... 15

4. Transition and Post Project........................................................................................... 17

4.1. Linking Physical and Virtual worlds .............................................................................. 18

4.2. Build Comparison.......................................................................................................... 20

4.3. Lifecycle Management .................................................................................................. 21


2. Preface

2.1. Purpose

This document describes the outputs from tideway Foundation which are typically used in server

consolidation and virtualisation projects. Foundation provides Application Dependency Maps,

pie and bar graphs, and tabular reports. All standard reports within Foundation export as CSV

by default. Additionally, a set of generic export adapters and data mapping sets allow the export

of any data to CSV and RDBMS.

2.2. Document History

Date Version Details

3rd

Sep 2008 0.a Initial Draft

4th Sep 2008 1.0 Final Draft


3. Identification & Prioritisation In this phase of a consolidation project Tideway Foundation’s agent-less discovery is used to

create a baseline of the existing estate. This provides an accurate view of the currently

deployed servers, operating systems, software and hardware model types.

The baseline allows prioritisation in two ways:

1. Identify systems running on old hardware

o High power consumption

o High heat output

o Low compute power

2. Through Application Dependency Mapping, prioritise based on business impact

o Scope servers in/out based on business function and criticality

o Understand change impact on business services by changing a server


3.1. System Identification

3.1.1. Example Server Detail


3.1.2. End of Life Operating Systems

Identify old operating systems


3.1.3. Breakdown by Hardware Model

Identify old server models


3.1.4. Power Consumption

Identify power hungry servers

Text Report View


3.1.5. Heat Output

Identify servers with high heat output


3.1.6. Low Compute Power

Identify servers with low compute power


Drill through to text report


3.1.7. Identify Infrastructure Software

This report shows all instances of Sybase Database Server. Through identifying the version

instances of software it may be possible to consolidate multiple database instances to a single

server.


3.2. Prioritisation

Once target systems have been identified it is necessary to understand the impact of changing

those systems. It may be the case that servers fulfilling a particular function are not appropriate

candidates for consolidation or virtualisation; a common example of this are servers that

perform vital statistical analysis; such as risk engines.

Additionally it is important to understand the business context of the servers that are candidates

for consolidation or virtualisation. The impact of change to the high level business service that a

server supports must be fully understood in order to de-risk the transition as much as possible.

Foundation performs that analysis through Application Dependency Mapping.

3.2.1. Link from Server to Business Service


3.2.2. Application Dependency Map for Mail Hub

Application Dependency Maps allow full visibility of a business service structure. From this view

we can see that any change to server lon1p0995mail may impact the Mail Hub service, the IIS

instance, and we can also see that the server is a member of a cluster. The other server in the

cluster should also be taken into consideration within the consolidation/virtualisation project.


3.2.3. View Extended Dependencies

This view allows us to see the impact of change to the Mail Hub to other business services it is

supporting.

A text based view is also available.


A full set of dependency reports is also available. This reporting allows full visibility of impact

when changing any component of a business service.


4. Transition and Post Project During the transition it is important to be able to track progress as it happens, and post project it

is equally important to ensure that servers and services have been re-provisioned as expected.

Consistency in builds and configurations is vital to ensure there is zero or limited downtime in

business services.

Foundation assists in several ways:

• Automatically link virtual systems to physical systems they are running upon

• Ability to compare servers to ensure consistent state

• Lifecycle management views to track and alert on deployment footprint variation


4.1. Linking Physical and Virtual worlds

The following VMware ESX server is automatically linked to the 2 virtual servers it is hosting.

The virtual servers are also linked back to the ESX server they are running on.


The containment relationship is also visualised in the following way:

All virtualisation dependency can also be reported:


4.2. Build Comparison

Foundation allows side-by-side comparison of any node kind in the data model. This commonly

used to compare server configuration; in virtualisation projects it is important to be able to

ensure build consistency.

Gold build reports can also be constructed to compare multiple servers within the data model.


4.3. Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle management allows views to be defined, enabling the tracking of deployments within

the environment.

This view is tracking the deployment of virtual machines within the environment. Each line

represents the dependency between:

• Physical server to virtualisation software

• Virtualisation software to virtual server

• Physical server to virtual server

Initially the discovered status is “current and unknown”. The deployed systems are reconciled

manually with the deployment program; if the deployed systems are correct the user sets the

status to “expected”. This becomes the baseline for the virtual machine footprint.

As new virtual servers are deployed or decommissioned they are identified by Foundation and

alerted to the user, either through the UI or by email. A checking stage occurs whereby the user

reconciles the newly deployed state.


The ability to track the progress of the deployment project in this way is important. Regular

discovery and alerting allows the Project owner to track progress on a daily basis, allowing them

to report with confidence the current state of the project.

Documents

Tideway Foundation Consolidation