Server Decommissioning Strategy for Application Availability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Resource consolidation programs often inadvertently decommission servers running special-purpose applications due to operational metrics, leading to unavailability of these applications.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that assesses servers based on characteristics and applications using a management server to identify candidate servers for decommissioning, employing a sampling engine and rules engine to determine deactivation scores, ensuring special-purpose applications remain available.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If servers are decommissioned based on operational metrics to reduce costs, then resource consolidation efficiency is improved, but special-purpose applications may become unavailable
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary identification of special-purpose applications on candidate servers before final decommissioning decisions are made. The management server scans and catalogs applications on each server, flagsging those running special-purpose applications, and uses this information to prevent decommissioning of critical servers while still allowing consolidation of non-critical servers.
2Loss of energy
If operational metrics are used to identify decommissioning candidates, then cost reduction is improved, but accuracy in identifying suitable candidates deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The management server acts as an intermediary between operational metrics and decommissioning decisions. It collects operational metrics, cross-references them with application inventory data, and applies business rules to determine whether a server is suitable for decommissioning. This intermediary layer ensures that servers running special-purpose applications are not mistakenly selected for decommissioning based solely on low operational metrics.
Data Source
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AI summary
Described herein is a system in which a number of servers in a server pool may be decommissioned without affecting the availability of capabilities provided by that pool of servers. In some embodiments, each server may be assessed with respect to its characteristics and the applications running on that server. In some embodiments, the server may be added to a list of servers to be decommissioned. In some embodiments, each server in the list of candidate servers may be assigned a deactivation score and ordered based on those deactivation scores. An automated decommissioning system may be implemented to decommission servers on a list of servers to be decommissioned and/or based on a deactivation score associated with that server.