ProjectTwo-Summer20211.pdf

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 1 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

CNT 4603: System Administration
Summer 2021

Project Two

Department of Computer Science
University of Central Florida

Instructor : Dr. Mark Llewellyn
[email protected]
HEC 236, 407-823-2790

Office Hours: T&Th: 3:00-4:00pm, W:4:00-5:00pm via Zoom
Zoom Details: Meeting ID: 920 1444 9781

Passcode: 008035

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 2 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: Overview
• Title: “Project Two: Server Virtualization Feasibility

Analysis”
• Points: 100 points
• Due Date: Wednesday June 16, 2021 by 11:59 pm

(WebCourses time)

• Objectives:
1. To practice conducting a financial feasibility (cost/benefit) analysis

for a server virtualization project.
2. To prepare an executive summary of the feasibility analysis.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 3 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: Overview
• What you are going to do in this project is pretend that
you are the system administrator for an organization
that is attempting to determine if virtualization of its
computing server infrastructure would be beneficial to
the organization from a financial perspective.

• As the system administrator you are in charge of
conducting the feasibility analysis for the project.

• This will include creating financial spreadsheets using a
5-year time-line and writing a brief report summarizing
your findings.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 4 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: Overview
• As explained in the notes, a feasibility analysis such as this requires
that you be able to compare the way the organization is currently
operating with the proposed changes to the operation.

• Thus, the first step in the analysis is to completely determine the
costs associated with the current operational technique.

• For this project, we will restrict the analysis to only a server
virtualization project. This means that we need to develop a
complete cost picture of the current server infrastructure to compare
to a proposed server infrastructure cost.

• The next few pages describe the current infrastructure of the
organization and this will be followed by a proposed infrastructure.
Let’s call the organization: HostPenny (we’re not as big as
HostDime!).

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 5 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• Currently HostPenny is running 3000 physical servers in its data center which

support various applications and several different operating systems.

• These servers are configured into four different groups:

– Group 1 consists of 1500 mission critical servers. Group 1 servers consume 3500W of power
each at full load (100% CPU utilization). The Group 1 servers average load is 15%.

– Group 2 consists of 800 mission critical servers. Group 2 servers consume 4500W of power
each at full load (100% CPU utilization). The Group 2 servers average load is 22%.

– Group 3 consists of 100 non-mission critical in-house application and file servers, each of which
consumes 2800W of power at full load. The servers in this group run with an average load of
10%

– Group 4 consists of a pool of 600 redundant servers utilized as backup servers. The Group 4
servers are split into two subgroups of 300 servers each, call them Group 4A and Group 4B.
Group 4A servers draw 3800W at full load and are used as backups for Group 1 and Group 2
servers. The Group 4B servers draw 3300W at full load and are used as backups for primarily
Group 1 and Group 3 servers. Group 4A and 4B servers run at average 1% load.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 6 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• Project Hint #1:

• The power consumed by a server is measured in Watts. Power companies charge for
power based on kWH (kilowatt-Hours). The Group 1 servers consume 3500W of power
at full load. However, they only average a 15% load, so what they actually consume, on
average, is 3500W x 0.15 = 525W. A device that consumes 1000W = 1kW for 1 hour will
use 1kWH of power. Thus, the Group 1 servers are consuming 525W = 0.525kW, so in 1
hour they will use 0..525kWH of power. Servers run 24/7 so in 1 day, one Group 1 server
will use 0.525kWH x 24hr = 12.6kWH of power. There are 1500 servers in Group 1, so
collectively they will consume 1500 x 12.6kWH = 18,900kWH of power in 1 day. Our
assumption (see page 18) is that the power company is charging 13 cents/kwH, so,
running all Group 1 servers for 1 day will cost: 18900kWH x 0.13$/kWH = $2457.00.
For year one, the cost to power Group 1 servers will be $2457.00 x 365 = $896,805.00.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 7 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• The server maintenance contracts on the current physical servers
are as follows:

– Group 1 (3500W) servers: $1500.00/server/year

– Group 2 (4500W) servers: $1750.00/server/year

– Group 3 (2800W) servers: $1000.00/server/year

– Group 4A (3800W) servers: $1100.00/server/year

– Group 4B (3300W) servers: $750.00/server/year

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 8 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• Project Hint #2: Use a fine grain breakdown of variables in your

spreadsheet – do not “lump together” various values.

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CNT 4603: Project Two Page 9 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• Server administration efforts also vary across the server groups

as follows:

– Group 1 (3500W) servers: 2.5 administrative weeks/server/year

– Group 2 (4500W) servers: 3.5 administrative weeks/server/year

– Group 3 (2800W) servers: 1.5 administrative weeks/server/year

– Group 4A (3800W) servers: 2 administrative weeks/server/year

– Group 4B (3300W) servers: 1 administrative week/server/year

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 10 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• Server backup efforts also vary across the server groups as
follows:

– Group 1 (3500W) servers: these servers are backed-up nightly and require
45 minutes per server.

– Group 2 (4500W) servers: these servers are backed-up nightly and require 1
hour per server.

– Group 3 (2800W) servers: these servers are backed-up weekly and require 2
hours and 15 minutes per server.

– Group 4A (3800W) servers: these servers are backed-up weekly and require
90 minutes per server.

– Group 4B (3300W) servers: these servers are backed-up every other week
and require 2 hours per server.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 11 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• Project Hint #3:

• Be careful with units and time. Some servers are backed-up nightly, others
weekly or every other week. Example – Group 1 servers are backed-up
nightly requiring 45 minutes/server. Thus, each server in Group 1 requires
365 x 0.75 hours/year of administrative time for backups. Since you are
given the time requirement in minutes and administrative time is based on
hours, convert backup effort into hours, so 45 minutes = 0.75 hours. Thus,
one server in Group 1 requires a total of 273.75 hours of backup time in 1
year. There are 1500 servers in Group 1 so the total time required for
backups is 1500 x 273.75 = 410,625 hours. Administrators are paid at the
rate of $100.00/hour, so the cost of backing up Group 1 servers for year 1 of
the study is 410,625 x 100 = $41,062,500.00

• Servers that are backed-up weekly require only 52 backups/year. Similarly,
those which are backed-up every other week will require only 27
backups/year.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 12 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: The Current Scenario
• HostPenny currently employs an external security firm to run routine

security audits on the mission critical servers (Groups 1 and 2). This occurs
once a month and the charge is $4500.00. The current contract with this firm
guarantees this price through the duration of this study.

• HostPenny currently employs a data storage company to maintain archival
backup copies of server backups. The charge for this service is billed
monthly and is based on the data volume stored each month. The bill last
month was $6500.00. Based on the data volume trend produced by
HostPenny, it is expected that the next billing level plateau will be achieved
at the start of year 3 of the study when the monthly cost will rise to
$10,000.00/month. This rate is expected to remain the same throughout the
duration of the study.

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CNT 4603: Project Two Page 21 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 22 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: Your Task
• Once your spreadsheets are completed, you’ll construct a 1 page executive

summary report of your findings for the COO of HostPenny.

• This report should address the feasibility of the proposed project and its
financial impact on the HostPenny organization.

• Normally, an executive summary summarizes a more complete
accompanying report. You will not be preparing this more complete report
in this case, you will only be preparing the executive summary.

• If you have never prepared an executive summary before (if you did project
1, you’ve have now done so), the following links might be useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_summary
http://libguides.wpi.edu/c.php?g=355392&p=2396307
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/documents/execsum/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_summary

http://libguides.wpi.edu/c.php?g=355392&p=2396307

http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/documents/execsum/

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 23 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: Your Task
• Note that an executive summary is different from an abstract.

• Abstracts tend to be most common in academic environments whereas
executive summaries are primarily confined to business environments.

• An abstract is a brief summarizing statement which is read by people who
are trying to decide whether or not to read the entire document.

• An executive summary is the document in miniature which can be read in
place of the longer document.

CNT 4603: Project Two Page 24 Dr. Mark Llewellyn ©

Project Two: Deliverables
• On or before 11:59 pm (WebCourses time) Wednesday June 16,
2021 submit the following items via WebCourses:

1. A spreadsheet (similar to that we developed in the notes) with
worksheets containing variable definitions, current cost
infrastructure, proposed project cost infrastructure, and a
summary worksheet. Use the spreadsheet template on
WebCourses as the starting point for your project.

2. A one page executive summary of your findings with respect to
the feasibility of this project for the HostPenny organization.
This executive summary should give an extremely brief
overview of the proposed project, a summary of your findings
(spreadsheet analysis results), and a recommendation of whether
the project should move forward or not.