Systems consolidation and containment should be considered if and when a company undertakes any of the following:

Our current focus in the market is based around the following :-

• Making major server or storage purchases
• Creating / migrating to a new data centre
• Considering incremental server purchases

 Consolidation will eliminate ‘server sprawl’ via deployment of systems as virtual machines (VMs) that can run safely and move transparently across shared hardware. This also leverages existing hardware investments by increasing the resource utilisation of server hardware from 5 - 15% up to between 60 and 80%.

Consolidation is typically approached in a phased manner to maximise previous investment and to avoid large capital outlay.

The initial stage for any consolidation or containment project is to undergo a capacity planning exercise. There are various methods of collating data in order to assess the potential for consolidation.

SystemsUp combine capacity planning data with wider discovery and business objectives to build a complete picture of the business case and scope of implementation.

The VMware capacity planner is one of the tools at our disposal. This generates a report including RAM and CPU utilization data that will enable you to accurately cost and scope a consolidation. The consolidation is therefore validated by VMware.

As a Gold VAC partner SystemsUp is fully authorised to deliver the service.

Features of the capacity planner service include :-

• Collection of System Performance data
• Detailed Hardware and Software inventory data
• Data Manager Function securely sends collected data to be warehoused at VMware.
•  Advanced algorithms analyse Capacity optimisation, aggregation, trending and benchmarking.
• Scenario modelling helps model and test planned or possible scenarios.
• Agent-less data collection across multiple platforms, no significant impact on the network.

Deliverable - Server consolidation and Virtualisation assessment report including preliminary TCO analysis and recommendations, Graphical representations of collated data.