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Server Consolidation

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PCQ Bureau
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Most of our resources either lie redundant or are wasted due to their non-judicious distribution. This is because the capacity assigned to each remains unused most of the times as the peak loads do not stay continuously. Even during the times when the workload is maximum, all the resources are seldom occupied. The systems and processes are designed in a manner such that they do not overshoot the maximum capacity. Same happens in our server rooms and data centers. Organizations end up with servers of different configurations, some of them completely out of date, running a variety of OSs and applications for different departments. Since these are individual servers, resources such as CPU power, disk space and RAM built into each remain redundant to an appreciable extent. Just imagine, these unused resources if added up could come to something that would be sufficient to run another such set of processes. But, just because they are on discrete systems, these are not useable by other systems than those allocated.

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To add to our woes, today's IT environment is unique. Budgets remain flat, business units now hold IT departments accountable for services provided and businesses demand less downtime and increased productivity. In short, the expectation is to do more with less. This has driven the need for IT consolidation as a way to streamline the IT infrastructure and to help IT departments achieve this goal expectation.

Unleash the power of server consolidation. In simple terms, combine a few servers and be able to work on any OS or application you like. But what lies in the world of consolidated servers for any organization? And why should one take the pain to consolidate at all? After all, it costs money. While a server consolidation effort provides IT departments many operational and strategic advantages, often the most important aspect of a successful

consolidation is the financial value.



Talking of the costs involved, Mahindra & Mahindra-an organization that has very recently upgraded to consolidated servers on a SAP R/3 platform (refer to the case study)-puts it very elegantly as, “ The cost of no change is more than the cost of change.”

So what is server consolidation? At its core, server consolidation is an enabling technology encompassing not just hardware, but software, services and-most importantly-the systems management disciplines and 'best practices' to tie it all together. 



The goal is to optimize and simplify your existing IT infrastructure-not just the servers, but the entire end-to-end infrastructure. The objective being to provide a stable foundation for new solution deployment: e-business, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management and business intelligence.

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Server consoliation is not only the physical movement of distributed architecture to centralized one, but also comprises collocation, hardware/data layer integration, application integration and Web host layer consolidation. Let's briefly look at what each of these signify. 

Collocation: An important part of a server consolidation, the benefits of hardware relocation include immediate cost savings on server management and operation. You also get better physical security, availability and system-usage capabilities.

Hardware/data layer integration: This means reducing the count of servers and enabling centralizing storage. It also lowers operating costs while improving performance and maximizing the availability of applications and data.

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Application integration: This means shifting the IT environment from multiple applications accessing multiple databases to solutions running on fewer servers that integrate databases and applications. This improves performance while reducing the TCO (total cost of ownership).

Web layer hosting: Consolidates the applications that run on a Web server onto a smaller number of servers to regain the data center space and reduce the expenditures. You can do this by clustering, using virtual machines, etc.

Ways of server consolidation



Server consolidation is an important part of IT consolidation. Today's servers consistently deliver increased reliability and processing power. The technological capabilities of servers present new options for IT managers. Large servers with multiple processors for mission-critical applications and smaller servers designed to utilize space more efficiently can help IT managers streamline their infrastructure.

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A successful server consolidation initiative will result in tangible financial, operational and strategic benefits while making the IT environment more efficient and easier to manage. This can be done in the following ways:

  • Centralization: You can collocate the servers and/or storage into fewer locations or one central location 
  • Physical: This means consolidating servers or storage systems with the same application types or platforms onto fewer or larger systems with the same application type or platform 
  • Data integration: Here you combine data with different formats onto a similar format or platform 
  • Application: This would consolidate and define the way the servers or storage systems would support different types of workloads onto fewer or larger systems. Here you are allowed to manage applications.
  • Storage: This means unifying storage onto fewer or larger storage systems independent of the server type, OS or 



    application

Application consolidation is the hottest topic of discussion among IT professionals. You can consolidate your applications by using either heterogeneous consolidation or homogeneous

consolidation. While heterogeneous application consolidation combines several different application types on the same server, the latter combines several instances of the same application on a single server. 

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Both these approaches of application consolidation can reduce the number of servers required to run applications and maintain the IT infrastructure. So one should use them according to the enterprise-specific needs.

Why consolidate?



There are different drivers that influence an organization's business decisions of whether or not to consolidate your servers. And accordingly the strategies are defined and the extent of

consolidation within an IT environment is decided. The driving forces behind a decision to consolidate could either be financial, operational or strategic. In most organizations, you have increasing number of servers as they grow. But not all of them have the financial strength to buy, implement, support and maintain these servers. So you may want to consolidate.

Otherwise, on the operations front, your organization may be facing higher downtimes and end-user frustration due to 



peaking server capacities or overloading. So the need to upgrade to an integrated environment where you can allocate resources properly and manage them efficiently as well. 

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On the other hand, there are some visionaries who would want a better and stable IT environment and processes in place. They know that with server consolidation in place, they would avail better functionality and availability. That is, one objective might be to obtain, say, 99.99% uptimes. Not only would you reduce the costs associated with managing your IT infrastructure, but you would also benefit from having a less complex infrastructure and increased agility. 

From the customers point of view, they would be looking to reduce the number of servers, data center space, TCO or the total cost of operation, operating costs, while simplifying the IT

environment. While a server consolidation initiative might 



reduce the number of servers in your environment, it is also likely that the scalability of the server environment will be greatly 


increased allowing you to put resources to use exactly when and where needed.

Server Consolidation at NSE

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NSE had a collection of servers from various vendors about two years ago, spread across an area of 1200 sq feet. With so many servers across such a large area, keeping track of their utilization was quite a challenge. Then NSE decided to go for server consolidation. It was done for its clearing and settlement and offline applications. These applications are a part of the trading system, but not a part of the trading engine itself. They handle the listings, memberships, etc. 

Before consolidation, NSE had 15 servers in their setup at Mumbai from various vendors. The consolidation brought it down to 11, which were from HP and IBM. This may not seem like a major consolidation on the face of it, but in reality, NSE derived huge benefits from it. For one, they were initially running Unix based servers with 15U form factors. So imagine the space saving if four such servers are removed from racks? That's exactly what happened, and NSE was able to put in more powerful servers in less than half the space. There was a dramatic reduction in the AMC, so much so that the cost saving justified the consolidation. The consolidated machines were far more powerful than previous ones, and NSE was able to gain 30% improvement in performance due to this. It also improved their overall system availability. Finally, the real benefit, which NSE claims they received from this consolidation was the scalability. The new servers are not only capable of running NSE's current applications, but they would be able to handle future applications as well. 

Lastly, such benefits don't come without hardships, and NSE had its share of them to face during this exercise. The biggest challenge for them for this exercise was the migration of everything from existing servers to the new ones. Secondly, since most of the applications were home grown, they had to be ported to the new platform. As you can well imagine, this is not an easy exercise, because code has to be ripped from one machine and run on a new platform. As you can imagine, consolidation didn't come easy for NSE, and it took almost a year to complete.

With inputs from Ashish Dandekar, Senior Manager Enterprise Management, NSE.IT

Top 10 Reasons

Following are the ten most common reasons (source: InfoWorld) why organizations consolidate. 

1. Losing track of servers 



2. Facing scalability restrictions 


3. High ratio of administrators to servers 


4. Running more than seven operating systems 


5. Difficulty controlling software licenses 


6. It is less expensive to buy new servers than to do capacity planning 


7. Purchasing is decentralized, but management is centralized 


8. Utilization rates for more than half of the servers are in single digits 


9. Physical space for every server is becoming difficult/expensive to find 


10. Server maintenance costs are skyrocketing 







Mahindra & Mahindra:  Project Sankraman

Scenario: M&M had a distributed implementation of SAP R/3 since 1997 at different locations. At that time SAP R/3 did not support Indian taxation requirements and auto industry-specific processes. Workaround solutions called 'Mahindra Add-ons or z-programs' were developed by MCL (Mahindra Consulting Ltd). Though these met the requirements, the performance of the system was affected. After they had realized the benefits from ERP, supply chain planning & execution, business intelligence, and connecting partners. The new dimension products (APO, BW) implemented to meet the changed requirements necessitated an upgrade of the R/3 system to version 4.6B. This was done in 2001. The latest in the upgrade until June 2004 was R/3 Enterprise version 4.7. It had better functionality, catered to Indian taxation and auto industry-specific processes (as it used the z-programs). It was then that M&M decided to take advantage of the new and improved technology making way in India. They wanted to do away with the z-programs as the maintenance costs were high and data consolidation was cumbersome.

The distributed environment had inherent problems. Two servers communicating with each other on a gigabit LAN was not possible in a distributed environment. So came the idea of making use of consolidating the system on a single server due to a marked improvement in the communication infrastructure. M&M then went for data center consolidation has already been done at Kandivli with all M&M servers at Worli and all R/3 servers from Nashik, Igatpuri, Zaheerabad and Nagpur co-located at Kandivli data center. 

In order to take maximum advantage of the improved functionality, rectify insufficiencies of earlier implementation, avoid working with sub-optimal work around solutions created in house, do away with delays in consolidation of information and data transfer, and incurring the cost of maintaining around 55 servers (20 Database Servers and 33 Application/DRS servers) with operating difficulties in server wise back up, patch upgrades and version upgrades-M&M decided to opt for server consolidation with fresh implementation of SAP R/3 Enterprise version 4.7. This would implement R/3 Enterprise on a single consolidated server with ease of maintenance on enhanced technology platform, also allowing inefficiency due to z programs be reduced to minimum. To add, no version upgrade would be needed till 2009 for core R/3. This would enable them use the enhanced functionalities on an improved platform with ease of operation and effective data transfer between systems.

Value propositions:



SAP R/3 E 4.7 would provide an advanced ERP base for advanced versions of new dimension SAP products like IS-Auto, SRM, CRM, etc within the organization. With this, they would be able to exploit the new technology platform provided by SAP and effectively meet the business requirements like vehicle sequencing, vehicle tracking, warranty management, etc.

Functionality would improve, especially with respect to India-specific requirements and auto industry specific requirements and rectify the insufficiencies of earlier implementation. As the number of servers will reduce and all of them will be centrally located, the efforts required to maintain the same will reduce proportionately. Facilities management teams can ensure better support in authorization, application of support patches; version upgrades and data backup. The time and efforts currently spent to clear the stuck i-docs from diverse systems would be saved. Consolidation of information and data transfer will be in a single server without any delay with reduced time and efforts in periodic consolidation of information and data flow.

Currently on account of separate servers lot of efforts are invested in consolidation of information and data flow thru 'ALE',

data upload, etc. This will get eliminated and integrated data will be available in one server. With its implementation, this is expected to improve data visibility and facilitate decision-making (inventory control, production planning, funds planning etc across the plants/company). Company-wide analytics can now be generated from single consolidated server. This would also result in reduction of time in period closing of accounts on monthly, quarterly as well as annual basis. The benefits that server consolidation brings in by upgrading to R/3 Enterprise include:

  • Latest application platform, ie Web Application server 6.20
  • Flexible upgrade strategies
  • Integration of CIN with standard SAP
  • Supports future developments (collaborative infrastructure)

The corporate IT team after study of various options decided to go in for UNIX based servers for its R/3 database. IBM P5 with AIX was chosen after in depth evaluation. M&M also decided to deploy the existing Intel-based servers as application servers with Win 2003. The state of the art datacenter at Kandivli, which has won the best NCPI (Network Critical Physical Infrastructure) award, provided for redundancy of power, network and air-conditioning.

CISCO Routers and switches are used all across the landscape. Leased lines and MPLS connectivity connect all manufacturing plant locations. Spare parts depots; various area sales offices and branch offices are connected by MPLS technology provided by BSNL. While the expected life of the project is 5 years, it took less than a month to get completed successfully. 

With inputs from Krishna H Nabar, Head — Business Solutions, Corporate IT, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

HDFC Bank's Migration to IBM p570

Scenario: HDFC Bank runs corporate banking business on FlexCube sourced from iflex Solutions while it uses CashTech Solutions' flagship product called 'CashIn' to manage its cash business. These systems not only run the processes smoothly, but also interface with various other systems in the bank. The existing Alpha server infrastructure was not geared to meet the bank's aggressive expansion plans and a growing customer base. With expanding operations and scaling up of the corporate banking and cash management systems, the bank required additional infrastructural support that would optimize the systems and future-proof the bank's IT investments. They needed a solution, which would provide greater infrastructural flexibility, and better manageability and handling of peak workloads, at the same time offering significant performance improvements. 

IBM proposed a solution built around the advanced POWER5 processors and the scalability of the IBM system and its virtualization capability fitted the requirements perfectly. Based on IBM POWER5â„¢ processors with simultaneous multi-threading and a unique scalable, building-block packaging, the p570 that HDFC used is well-suited for server consolidation projects, database management, etc. The solution was designed to be capable of consolidating database over highly available servers, with separate partitions housing different instances; offering a totally redundant automatic fail over, configured to support both Oracle RAC and non RAC environments; handling scalability, expansion and increase of workloads. Best-of-breed technology and server consolidation approach was used, offering the best system performance on standard benchmarks (TPC-C, SAPS, etc.).

The project took less than a year to come to action. It was initiated in August 2004, within a month the solution was finalized, and it was ready in March 2005. The lifetime of the project is expected to be 4-5 years, after which it would be reviewed again.

Architecture: IBM's p570 servers are configured in the HACMP cluster environment. Two such servers are placed at the primary site and one at the DR site. All the servers are connected to the SAN Switches, which in turn are connected to the Hitachi storage for production/DR environment and IBM storage for UAT environment. The solution has been configured with redundant paths with no single point of failure in the connectivity to the storage and the network. Veritas Netbackup solution has been implemented for efficiently taking backup copies of databases on Gen3 LTO tapes. CA-Unicenter agents are configured on the servers for online real-time monitoring and proper escalations for proactively managing these servers are defined.

FlexCube migration involved a complex qualification on Oracle 9i on IBM AIX 5.3 platform. Forms 6 migration to 6i, business objects migration to latest supported version and a whole lot of load-testing scripts using rational tool, and so on. Similar exercise was carried out to certify CashIn on the new platform.

Value propositions:

  • IBM solution offered a clear roadmap of p5 technology. The new processor and hardware and was well suited for scaling along with the Bank's growing business.
  • With superior architecture of IBM POWER5 & Oracle 9i, a performance 2-3 times with lesser number of CPUs was achieved. The software licensing cost reduced to a sizable extent at the same time offering a low-cost path for future growth.
  • With IBM's dynamic reallocation of resources and on-demand computing, the problems of the tackling peak loads have been

    addressed. IBM solution also offered the technological superiority of virtualization, allowing the bank to create pseudo-servers within servers by logically partitioning the servers and dynamically assigning resources. This allows the bank to automatically manage the loads at peak hours by spreading it across unutilized resources from other partitions. 

With inputs from GSV Surya Prasad, Vice President IT, HDFC Bank

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