Server Consolidation: 6 Steps for Addressing Server Sprawl

Everyone who has ever been a systems administrator or infrastructure manager has at some point experienced server sprawl. Over the past few years, technologies like virtualization, Docker and cloud services have come along to help address this challenge. Nonetheless, at some point either someone is going to say “do we really need all those servers? Surely there are at least a few that we can turn off?”

This article isn’t intended to stop server sprawl from occurring, but rather how to address it once it has occurred. While it may seem easy to just go into the data center (or VM console) and identify what can turn off and what needs to stay, oftentimes however, it isn’t.

1. What problem are you trying to address through server consolidation?

Like most projects, the scope on a server consolidation project can creep out of control if it is not managed properly. This is largely because there are several strategies that can be employed to reduce the quantity of servers in an organization. Because of this, it is critical to know what problem you are trying to solve first, and then decide on your consolidation strategy. Some common reasons to begin a server consolidation effort are:

• The administrative burden of several servers exceeds your staff’s capacity to manage them
• Two or more organizations have merged and there are too many servers performing the same functions
• To prepare for a move to a new data center
• Reduce cost of server operation
• To reduce the organization’s risk exposure
• To prepare for hardware lifecycle replacement
• Applications and their underlying infrastructure are ready for decommissioning.

2. Take inventory of all your servers (Physical and Virtual)

This seems like a no brainer, but I’ve been part of more than one project where additional servers were discovered as part of the consolidation project. It is incredibly important to understand the current state and quantity of servers for a given function, so that you can create a vision for the desired end state. Below is a sample of what each record in a server inventory could look like:

It is important to not make this inventory more complicated than it needs to be in the beginning. While your technical teams will need to know things like external IP addresses, firewall rules, RAM, Storage, and CPU type, at this point you only need to know the basics. Once you have a basic inventory together, you can move on to categorization (for purposes of consolidation)