Application placement among a set of consolidation servers utilizing license cost and application workload profiles as factors

Abstract

Applications in a data center can be consolidated by identifying different combinations of software executing on hardware. The software can include a set of applications that execute upon a set of servers. The different combinations can have different arrangements of applications running on different ones of the servers. For each of the different combinations, a licensing cost, an operating cost, and a total cost can be calculated. The total cost of operation for each of the configurations can be calculated by summing the licensing costs, the operating costs adjusted for the cost savings for complementary workload patterns, and migration costs for adjusting a current configuration of the applications and servers to arrive at the configuration. The total cost results per configuration can be reported to a user for at least a set of the configurations.

1 . A method comprising:
 storing information on at least one storage medium, wherein said information is for a set of applications running on a set of servers, said information comprising:
 (i) licensing data for the set of applications that includes licensing costs per application, 
 (ii) application workload requirements for the set of applications running on the set of servers, and 
 (iii) records of computing resources of each of the set of servers, wherein the application workload requirements of the set of applications are mapped to computing resources of the set of servers; 
   determining dependencies for the set of applications running on the set of servers;   generating a plurality of configurations for the set of applications running on the set of servers, wherein said plurality of configurations comprises a first configuration and a second configuration, wherein different arrangements of the set of applications are placed within different ones of the set of servers in the first configuration and in the second configuration, wherein each of the plurality of configurations:
 (i) assures that the set of applications are placed within specific ones of the set of servers, and 
 (ii) assures that computing resources of each of the set of servers upon which the set of applications are placed satisfies application workload requirements of a server-subset of the set of applications that are placed within that server; 
   calculating licensing costs for the first configuration and for the second configuration, wherein the licensing costs as calculated consider costs consistent with the dependencies;   calculating operational costs for the first configuration and for the second configuration;   calculating total costs for the first configuration and for the second configuration, where the licensing costs and the operating costs are summed when calculating the total costs;   recommending one of the first configuration and the second configuration depending on which configuration has a lower total cost in accordance with the calculations; and   providing results of the recommending to an authorized administrator as part of a programmatic action for consolidating the set of applications running on the set of servers.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of configurations comprise at least two configurations in addition to the first configuration and the second configuration;
 for each of the plurality of configurations, calculating the licensing costs, the operational costs, and the total costs for that configuration; and   recommending one of the plurality of configurations based on the calculated total costs.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein specific ones of the plurality of configurations: (i) require a purchase of different hardware for the set of servers, (ii) require purchasing of additional application licenses, and (iii) require a change in application licensing arrangements, said method further comprising:
 factoring in a cost of the different hardware when calculating total costs for the plurality of configurations;   factoring in a cost of purchasing the additional application licensing when calculating total costs for the plurality of configurations; and   factoring in a cost of changing application licensing arrangements when calculating total costs for the plurality of configurations.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 calculating a migration cost for migrating the set of applications from an original configuration to the first configuration and from the original configuration to the second configuration; and   calculating total costs for the first configuration and for the second configuration by adding the migration costs to the total costs.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , when determining the licensing cost for the first configuration and the second configuration comprise application licensing costs, middleware licensing costs, operating system operating costs for operating systems needed by the set of applications per the dependencies, and database licensing costs for databases needed by the set of applications per the dependencies and the workload requirements. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , when determining the operating costs for the first configuration and the second configuration, minimizing a quantity of the set of servers needed to handle the workload requirements of the set of applications by consolidating the set of applications with complementary workload usage patterns onto a common one of the set of servers. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the set of servers are virtual machines running on a virtualization layer of an information technology environment, wherein the total costs for the first configuration and for the second configuration takes operational costs of running the virtual machines into account. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the set of servers are virtual machines running on a virtualization layer of an information technology environment, wherein the total costs calculated for the first configuration and for the second configuration accounts for hardware-level costs for the set of servers and related components, accounts for virtualization layer costs, and accounts for application level costs. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 interactively modeling an information technology infrastructures for the first configuration and the second configuration within a canvas of a graphical user interface of a consolidation tool, wherein the license costs, operational costs, and total costs are calculated automatically and presented within the graphical user interface responsive to specifics constructed on the canvas, wherein as changes are interactively made within the canvas, cost computations are dynamically and correspondingly changed so that the configurations represented within the canvas of the graphical user interface have updated and corresponding cost values associated with them.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the first configuration represents a current configuration of the set of servers and the set of applications within an information technology (IT) environment, wherein the second configuration represents a proposed change to the information technology (IT) environment that was programmatically determined by a consolidation tool, wherein the second configuration has a lower total cost than the first configuration, wherein cost savings between the first configuration and the second configuration represent an operational cost savings achieved by consolidating the set of applications with complementary workload usage patterns on a common one of the set of servers and also represent a cost savings with needing fewer software license due to a placement of the set of applications within the set of servers, wherein placement of the set of applications within the set of servers in the second configuration represents a tradeoff between licensing costs and complementary application workloads. 
     
     
         11 . A method comprising:
 generating a plurality of different combinations of software executing on hardware, wherein the software comprises a set of applications that execute upon a set of servers, wherein each of the set of servers is a virtual machine executing on a virtualization level of an information technology environment, wherein the different combinations have different arrangements of the set of applications running on different ones of the set of servers;   for each of the different combinations:
 calculating a licensing cost of the set of applications, which varies in value from configuration-to-configuration; 
 calculating an operating cost for running the set of applications which also varies in value from configuration-to-configuration based on cost savings achieved through hosting the set of applications with complementary workload patterns on a common one of the set of servers; and 
 calculating a total cost of operation for each of the configurations, which is calculated by summing the licensing costs, the operating costs adjusted for the cost savings for complementary workload patterns, and migration costs for adjusting a current configuration of the set of applications and the set of servers to arrive at the configuration for which the total cost is being calculated; and 
 reporting the total cost results per configuration to a user for at least a subset of the configurations. 
   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the licensing costs of the set of applications varies as different arrangements of the set of applications on the set of servers necessary to satisfy an application workload affect a quantity and cost of software licenses needed for executing the set of applications per that configuration. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising:
 suggesting a subset of the set of applications that are to be swapped from running on one of the set of servers to another of the set of servers based a lower total cost computation resulting from swapping the subset of applications from one of the set of servers to another of the set of servers, wherein the suggesting optimizes a tradeoff between the licensing costs and cost savings resulting from complementary workload patterns.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising:
 interactively modeling information technology infrastructures for each of the configurations within a canvas of a graphical user interface of a consolidation tool, wherein the license costs, operational costs, and total costs are calculated automatically and presented within the graphical user interface responsive to specifics constructed on the canvas.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein as changes are interactively made within the canvas, cost computations are dynamically and correspondingly changed so that the configurations represented within the canvas of the graphical user interface have updated and corresponding cost values associated with them. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein at least one of the configurations require a purchase of different hardware for the set of servers where the cost of the different hardware is factored into the corresponding total cost for that configuration. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein at least one of the configurations require purchasing of additional application licenses that is an additional cost that is factored into the corresponding total cost for that configuration. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein at least a portion of the configurations require a change in application licensing arrangements that is a cost change factored into the corresponding total cost for that configuration.