Tideway is exploring the feasibility of releasing server reference data to augment discovered data in order to help customers analyze server consolidation opportunities more effectively.

The specification attributes that we have identified as being required are:
- Total Power (Watts)
- Power (VA)
- BTU/hr
- Rack Space (RU)

Please tell us if these additional attributes will be of value to you and whether there is additional reference data required to enable analysis of server consolidation opportunities

VA and BTU/hr are the same thing, just in different units. Spec/data sheets seem to vary in how accurate they are for these types of numbers. Some don’t seem to distinguish between total power and VA, others look like they differentiate between power up current and continuous running. Yet others seem to just take total power as peak and VA as RMS current.

We need to add in SPECint so that it’s easy to do an initial cut on how much compute capacity is being refreshed (this is Sun’s best estimate of the metric to use) - although to understand the current capacity really needs utilisation numbers, too.

For Windows machines, server consolidation is more of a challenge at the best of times because of dll clashes and the way that products like sql server work, which make it more difficult to identify common compute platforms. Either some specific reports to unpick that mess, or we promote virtualisation to address Windows consolidation - with all of the service risks that involves for production systems.

As the previous poster indciates, in a Windows environment the opportunity for consolidation is more of a logical than a physical consideration, useful metrics would therefore be related to processor/disk/memory utilisation and capacity with additional consideration to the software portfolio of the potential source/destination servers.

Steve Watts - 08 February 2008 03:53 PM

Tideway is exploring the feasibility of releasing server reference data to augment discovered data in order to help customers analyze server consolidation opportunities more effectively.

The specification attributes that we have identified as being required are:
- Total Power (Watts)
- Power (VA)
- BTU/hr
- Rack Space (RU)

Please tell us if these additional attributes will be of value to you and whether there is additional reference data required to enable analysis of server consolidation opportunities

These would be very useful to us, in addition to some other fields specifically related to the hardware, ie. how many memory slots, how many drive bays, etc.

On another note, it would also be useful to know more info about the hardware itself.  I.e. what make of CD-ROM is installed, which network card, etc.