p2v planning - identifying good/bad p2v candidates

[wmi_wmi]

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I've reviewed the "Proven

Practice: Migration Methodology"

(http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1349) document, as well as

"P2V Decision Tree"

(http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1353), but I'm coming up short

on just how to go about identifying good/bad p2v candidates. The

piece of the analysis that I'm getting hung-up on is the "workload

analysis". I'm not sure exactly what the best path-forward is.

I see that the rule-of-thumb is that a machine would be a "bad

candidate" if it looks like this... &gt;4CPU and &lt;= 50%

Utilization, &gt; 8GB used RAM, &gt; 100Mbps NIC, &gt; 100MBps Disk

IO. However, I'm certain is there's an automated tool that I'm

missing that will do some independent analysis... I expect that

there's some tool out there that will setup some sort of performance

monitoring and tell me if the machine is a good/bad candidate for

virtualization?

As far as background goes, I have a

"small" but very visible Virtualization opportunity. The

existing infrastructure supports a manufacturing environment, and

consists of 8 Windows server (7 2003, and 1 2000). Anecdotally, the

I/O profile of these VM's is mixed. The servers are generally older

(3-7 years) and some have "high" CPU utilizations of ~&gt;50%,

2 have "substantial" disk utilization (500GB of storage on

2 of the VM's), and that 500GB is re-written weekly. The Proven

Practice methodology suggests that most of these would be reasonable

virtualization candidates, but I need to come up with a test plan.

There is no existing virtualization infrastructure within the

environment, so this would be a new VMware installation. At this

point I expect we'll be using ESX 3.5, but I'm not quite there yet

(could be ESXi). In the past, I've done a number of small p2v

projects (NT 4, 2000, and 2003) - primarily with machines that were

on their last leg, and virtualization was the only path-forward.

Since this effort is a planned effort on a working infrastructure, I

want to make sure I'm presenting the best possible analysis.

Any suggestions on the work-load

analysis piece would be appreciated.

[AndreTheGiant]

If server are really old, also with high CPU usage they could be good candidates.

Just check the number of core or CPU used and the CPU frequency.

For example: if you have a dual P3 with 1000MHz that work at 80% you can virtualize with no problem on 2 core of a Xeon 1,6 GHz and you could have a 50% of vCPU usage (maybe a little more).

Andre

[wmi_wmi]

I follow the logic there... but what I'm really looking for is a tool that will analyze the existing infrastructure and make recommendations, or give a confidence level that a particular server is a candidate for virtualization. For instance, the best-practices documents suggest that it shouldn't be an issue. But I'd like to be able to run a tools, and have it indiciate with a high-level of confidence that these are good candidates... that makes the project lower risk, and easier to "sell" to the end-customer. Any ideas?

[vcpguy]

You can use the vmware consolidation setting used via Virtual Center. It is like a mini capacity planner.

[AndreTheGiant]

As written before you can use the consolidator plugin (if you have vCenter Server).

Or ask of a Capacity Planner service.

Andre

[bulletprooffool]

A few options:

1) get your VM supplier to run VMWare capacity planner

2) tru VMWare guided consolidation (free with vSpehere)

3) Get 3rd party tool like PlateSpin's power Recon.