Apparatus and method for capacity planning for data center server consolidation and workload reassignment

• US 8,452,862 B2
• Filed: 06/17/2010
• Issued: 05/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Walton, Chris, Neuse, Douglas M, Matchett, Douglas K
• Primary Examiner(s): Zele, Krista
• Assistant Examiner(s): FORMAN, JAMES Q
• Application Number:
  US12/802,997
• Publication Number:
  US 20110029880A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,076 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level

Abstract

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.

Claims

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.