Disaster recovery benefits aside, estimates showed that if the company could consolidate its server pool by 25 percent (its goal for 2006), it would save $1.5 million in hardware replacement expenses over the next two years—even without including ongoing support costs for the systems that would no longer exist. Numbers like those put Bell on a path to find a tool that could help it identify which systems were ripe for consolidation. Capacity analysis and asset management tools could do part of the job, but Bell found a product from a small vendor that seemed to address the heart of the issue.

Tool Talk

Bell originally had used startup Cirba’s Data Center Intelligence tool purely for auditing purposes. But Cirba believed its tool could also do capacity planning and analysis. "They took it away and came back with a quick tool that could do just that," says Bell Senior Systems Analyst Lou Sachin.

Cirba claimed that its new tools could provide data center intelligence: detailed reporting of asset utilization in the data center combined with cross-referenced information about what systems could be consolidated based on factors such as a server’s operating system version, its utilization percentage, its available memory, or seemingly trivial but often critical details such as the time zone setting of the system clock. The tool generates reports that help users identify consolidation opportunities without resorting to extended whiteboard sessions or trial and error. "What I really like is the way they can set you up for consolidation," says Andi Mann, senior analyst at IT consultancy Enterprise Management Associates. "The Cirba stuff gives you some easy-to-use graphics and metrics on utilization and compatibility. You could probably achieve some of this with some of the high-level management-type tools from IBM and BMC, but Cirba provides sort of a one-stop shop for this specific functionality."

Consolidation-specific tools aren’t a necessity, however, particularly for smaller companies, says Michael Minichino, director of infrastructure at marketing services provider Parago. Heading into 2006, Minichino had several new IT initiatives slated that would require either more space at his colocation facility or better use of the existing racks. Minichino was intrigued by the power-per-rack-space claims of new Sun hardware—the T2000 series of servers—and decided to try the latter route.

But he didn’t bother looking for a tool to help him figure his savings; he went straight to spreadsheets. "We’ve purchased an asset management tool mainly for tracking workstations," Minichino says. "[But] I haven’t really seen anything that would give me more of a return than spreadsheets." His calculations led him to cut 10 servers from his colocation facility.