Best Practices for Managing Data Center Costs via Application and Server Consolidation Server sprawl, software license fees, and facilities costs are sending data center operational expenses through the roof at a time when every penny is being scrutinized. Low utilization rates and wasted power/cooling resources are no longer acceptable, and smart companies are looking to consolidation and virtualization to trim expenses and increase operating efficiency. Next-generation Sun servers, based on the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, allow IT organizations to meet these challenges by delivering game-changing performance and virtualization improvements that help enable companies to leverage best practices for IT management, application deployment, work processes, and cost control. Introduction Best practices is a popular buzz phrase in today s business world. From equipment purchases to data center management to workflow processes, there s always a list of steps to perform and factors to consider in order to increase the likelihood of success. These lists, though, aren t always easy to implement in the real world. The complex processes and inherently chaotic nature of any busy company make any kind of organizational structure difficult to impose. This is especially true for the IT organization. When a department within a company needs to roll out a new application, it sends a request to IT, which must procure and provision a server, allocate network connections and storage resources, and deploy the solution. In most companies, this process takes weeks, at least, from request to fulfillment. After a few years of such practice, a company s data center typically ends up being chock full of servers, with each one hosting one application for one group.
The company is then left with paying hefty electrical bills to power each unit and to cool the room, but each server is only running at about 10 percent capacity, and sometimes less. In addition, these hardware units take up valuable space, and in many companies, the data center becomes overcrowded. The ad-hoc setup procedures and masses of cabling strung throughout the room create a mess that is difficult to navigate, let alone manage. IT management, in turn, creates another headache. When patches and updates must be applied, IT administrators have to handle this process manually for each server unit. This tedious task can take days, even when the updates and patches are routine and don t create any conflicts or problems. And as the server fleet ages, the likelihood of these routine maintenance tasks going smoothly gets increasingly lower. As a result, management costs increase exponentially with every server that is purchased and installed. This is driving many companies to consolidate and virtualize in order to increase utilization rates, reduce energy costs, and simplify their IT operations. It s clear that maintaining older servers can create problems in terms of space, facilities and energy costs, and staff time. On the other hand, next-generation, high-performance Sun servers powered by the new Intel Xeon processor 5500 series help bring these costs in line and help enable your company to implement best practices for data center operations. With unmatched virtualization density and highly granular power management, Sun servers deliver performance, reliability, and energy efficiency that enable companies to meet today s computing challenges and scale for growth and success in the future. Benefits of Consolidation and Virtualization As previously mentioned, one problem with many traditional data center set-ups is that the old one- application/one-server rule is not cost-efficient. Today s new high-performance servers, coupled with virtualization technology, can replace older servers at a dramatically reduced rate. With virtualization, each hardware unit can host several virtual servers, each with its own OS, and access to memory, connectivity, and processing resources. By cutting the actual hardware by a factor of five, 10, or even more, companies are realizing tremendous savings in electricity and cooling costs. In addition, by running five or more virtual servers on a single hardware unit, companies are ensuring that the server s processing and memory capacity is leveraged more fully, thereby reducing waste and increasing value. Management burdens are also simplified, with server deployment becoming a matter of software commands, not physical setup. Standard templates or configurations for application servers can be applied to multiple instances simultaneously, and management tasks can be carried out centrally and applied to all the servers in the department or company. This can reduce server rollout time from weeks to hours, and save thousands of dollars with each deployment. This is where best practices come in. The centralized management and flexibility of virtualized data centers enable companies to implement and reap the benefits of best practices for business processes and IT services. This strategy thus makes the best use of IT budget and resources and aligning the IT organization s operations more closely with business goals and activities. For example, virtualized servers running on powerful hardware are easier to back up and copy than unique physical units. Where a manually repaired server outage would have caused, for instance, three hours of downtime in the past, a server outage in a virtualized setting could be remedied almost instantly. Most virtualization management tools enable administrators to automate failover routines, so the company can issue uptime
> BEST PRACTICES AT A GLANCE guarantees and offer competitive service level agreements (SLAs). Practice Benefit Reduce hardware count Virtualize servers Apply standard templates and configurations Incorporate backup and failover schemes Consolidate applications Lower electricity, maintenance, facilities costs Increased resource utilization, rollout speed, flexibility Speed business processes, lower IT overhead and costs Improve disaster preparedness and SLA guarantees With easy deployments comes the potential for configuration management as well. If a certain department within a company has a basic set of server requirements, IT can maintain a standard server template for its needs. Any time a request comes in, a new instance can be deployed automatically. This can shave weeks off testing and production cycles, accelerating workflows and enabling the company to speed its time-to-market. Simplify IT environment, lower costs The immediate savings in terms of reduced electricity costs and management overhead are augmented by these softer but no less compelling benefits of enhanced continuity and higher productivity. Sun Servers and Storage Knowing that companies will reap important benefits, including cost savings and easier server and storage management, Sun Microsystems developed its new Sun Fire servers and Sun Blade server modules to fit every business need, from Web and application service to high-performance computing. These hardware models, together with Sun s networking and storage technologies and innovative Solaris OS, are part of the company s Open Network Systems (ONS) initiative. The goal of Open Network Systems is to deliver products that support advanced business operations today and well into the future. It focuses on innovating and leveraging the convergence of open standards for computing, storage, networking, and software. The resulting systems deliver superior speed, simplicity, scalability, and savings when compared with previous generations of data center equipment. With ONS, all Sun products offer the widest possible range of interactivity and compatibility supporting Windows*, Linux*, Solaris, and many other operating systems, and ensuring that your solution integrates seamlessly into the existing infrastructure. In addition, to reduce latency and increase application performance and read/write speeds, Sun servers offer solid-state drives and flash memory in addition to traditional hard disks. These not only read and write data more quickly than spinning disks, but they also improve reliability and uptime by eliminating moving parts from the memory system. The new Intel Xeon processor 5500 series that powers Sun systems includes a host of performance improvements and energy consumption controls. The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series applies power and clock speeds as dictated by the workload, increasing rates for heavy loads and throttling back when idling or running less-demanding applications. This intelligent power control is enabled by default, and administrators can customize its settings using helpful monitoring and management tools built into the Solaris OS to best meet their IT needs and ensure the optimal balance of power consumption and performance. Automating these controls also helps simplify the IT environment, and frees IT staffers to work on more business-oriented tasks. The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series also supports single-thread or multi-thread processing for the most demanding and dynamic business applications. Additional performance and horsepower comes from the Intel QuickPath Interconnect architecture, which thus enables each processor to access the closest and most efficient memory resources on the motherboard. All of these speed enhancements add up to improved productivity, increased customer and user satisfaction, faster response times for Internet and e- commerce applications, and room to grow and evolve as the business does.
All of these improvements pay off in real speed and efficiency boosts. Based on Intel benchmark tests, the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series delivers up to 2.25 times the performance at similar platform power as compared with the Intel Xeon processor 5400 series. At idle, it draws up to 50 percent less power than the previous-generation processors. 1 Management Ease Sun servers are also easy to manage and deploy. Having the flexibility of standards-based and open protocols enables companies to tailor the system s performance to their needs. Sun s Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) is included with the latest Sun server models at no extra charge. ILOM delivers comprehensive control of Sun systems, both locally and remotely, thus easing IT burdens by enabling centralized management. ILOM also integrates easily with popular system management tools from Sun and third-party providers. With ILOM, administrators can monitor systems remotely, check status alerts and event logs, correct errors, check power and cooling indicators, respond to security alerts and notifications, configure networking settings, audit usage logs, control admin access, and automate routine tasks. Companies that want to maximize their investment in Sun servers will find the Solaris OS a powerful asset. The Solaris OS threading model has years of optimization behind it, and it leverages the increased processing power and multi-thread capabilities of the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series without any need for customization or code changes. In addition to high performance, the Solaris OS is able to take advantage of the added energy efficiency and reliability of the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series. The Solaris OS Predictive Self Healing is a feature that helps diagnose, isolate, and recover from hardware and application faults. Integrating Storage Another key factor when planning and deploying virtualization in your server environment is the challenge of designing a storage infrastructure. Special consideration must be given to architecting and consolidating your storage infrastructure to support server-virtualized application workloads for high availability, maximum performance, and reduced management complexity. While there are many options, using Sun s Network File System (NFS) protocol is a simple way to architect and manage your new storage environment, and it provides the best performance. NFS is integrated with the VMware ESX* operating system, so you may assign network-based file systems to virtual machines and associated Windows applications such as MS/Exchange*, Sharepoint*, MS/SQL*, and others. Sun Storage systems can help bring the following additional benefits to a server-virtualized environment: Improved efficiencies with better visibility of virtualized application workload Decreased operational burden, simplifying management and reducing costs Simplified thin provisioning of VM files on NFS DTrace Analytics for enhanced SLAs by detecting and removing bottlenecks Accelerated VM cache performance with Flash SSDs Reduced deployment costs over Fibre Channel and iscsi hardware. Best Performance for Best Practices Implementing next-generation Sun servers and storage can help companies to significantly boost performance and trim costs. For example, one Sun server based on the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series can replace nine old single-core Intel Xeon processor-based servers, or three servers based on the Intel Xeon processor 5100 series. 2 This reduction in hard- 1 Source: Intel internal measurements using SPECjbb2005* as of Aug 2007. System configurations: 2S, 80W processors, 8 DIMMs, 1 HDD, 1 PSU. Except Irwindale=110W processors; Power measurements using SPECjbb2005. Tylersburg-EP from Intel internal measurements as of Sept 2008 with 2.93GHz 95W processors. This information is preliminary and subject to change before launch. 2 Source: Intel estimates as of Nov 2008. Performance comparison using SPECjbb2005 bops (business operations per second). Results have been estimated based on internal Intel analysis and are provided for informational purposes only. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance.
ware footprint cuts management expenses, licensing fees for server operating systems, and energy costs. Companies thus can deploy these servers strategically to consolidate existing workloads and position the business for growth. In some cases, companies are consolidating rack space by 50-75 percent, slashing energy costs by 60 percent, and paying half the price of other, similarly configured offerings. 3 Surprisingly, the lower cost does not come with lower expectations. Sun s servers have earned top honors on dozens of benchmark comparisons, outperforming competing systems on benchmark tests such as VMware s VMMark and SPEC s SPECjbb. 4 In terms of best practices for deploying a virtualization solution, companies in the planning stage should, first and foremost, perform a thorough inventory of existing hardware and software, followed by a load analysis to determine exactly how much processing power and bandwidth each application needs. At this planning stage, ROI calculators such as the Sun & Intel x86 Server Refresh Savings Estimator 5 can provide basic outlines or detailed reports of how many physical servers can be eliminated and how much energy can be saved, based on the number and age of your existing server fleet. In sum, Sun servers and blades can help enable companies to implement industry best practices for cost-control and business success, including better resource utilization, instant failover, continuity and recovery, uptime guarantees, and process improvements. Why Sun and Intel? Leveraging the expertise and cutting-edge technology advances from leading vendors Intel and Sun is a smart choice for today s companies. Over the years, Intel has made steady gains in energyefficient performance and innovative design. Intel is the world leader in silicon processor technology innovation, and the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series takes intelligent power and performance to new levels. Sun Microsystems worked closely with Intel to engineer a family of servers that leverage Intel expertise to meet mid-size and enterprise workload needs reliably and efficiently. Sun s servers reflect decades of expertise in designing innovative network computing infrastructure solutions. Sun creates products and services that address the complex needs of today s companies, and it partners with market leaders to provide value and choice for its customers. Its comprehensive family of solutions includes hardware systems and software such as the Solaris OS, Java, and MySQL, all of which integrate seamlessly to deliver powerful business computing. Aside from its world-class hardware and software, Sun Microsystems service and support offerings are among the best in the industry. In 2008, the Service and Support Professionals Association honored Sun and awarded it with the following distinctions: Best Value-added Support Best On-site Service Best Service Delivery Optimization Hall of Fame Award: Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Service. These accolades are a good indication that Sun is committed to making its products work optimally for your business. 3 See customer testimonials at http://www.sun.com/customers 4 Additional product information and specifications are available at: www.sun.com/intel 5. https://roianalyst.alinean.com/sunandintel/launch.html 5
Conclusion Companies faced with poor resource utilization and high power/cooling costs need to take better control of their data center operations. Ask yourself: How old are your servers? How many applications run on each? How much are you spending on electricity, and how much of that money and power is wasted? Investing in solutions from Sun and Intel will cut these costs and bring IT into closer alignment with business needs and goals. With powerful Sun servers in the data center, companies enjoy top application performance and granular energy management, helping them to implement best practices around IT processes, service level guarantees, backup and recovery, and cost control. < To learn more about Sun Microsystems latest server offerings, visit http://www.sun.com/intel. You can also find more educational content designed to help drive your server strategy forward at the Sun/Intel Server Strategy Resource Center. 6 6 http://www.webbuyersguide.com/landingzone/sun-intel/default.aspx. Copyright 2009, Intel Corporation and Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Intel, Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Sun Blade, Sun Fire, all trademarks and logos that contain Sun, Solaris, or Java, and certain other trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing. Results have been estimated based on internal Intel analysis and are provided for informational purposes only. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Intel does not control or audit the design or implementation of third-party benchmark data or Web sites referenced in this document. Intel encourages all of its customers to visit the referenced Web sites or others where similar performance benchmark data are reported and confirm whether the referenced benchmark data are accurate and reflect performance of systems available for purchase 6