A Cost-Oriented Tool to Support Server Consolidation

Nowadays, Companies perceive the IT infrastructure as a commodity not delivering any competitive advantage and usually, as the first candidate for budget squeezing and costs reductions. Server consolidation is a broad term which encompasses all the projects put in place in order to rationalize the IT infrastructure and reduce operating costs. This paper presents a design methodology and a software tool to support Server Consolidation projects. The aim is to identify a minimum cost solution which satisfies user requirements. The tool has been tested by considering four real test cases, taken from different geographical areas and encompassing multiple application types. Preliminary results from the empirical verification indicate that the tool identifies a realistic solution to be refined by technology experts, which reduces consolidation projects costs, time and efforts.