Patent Publication Number: US-10776244-B2

Title: Consolidation planning services for systems migration

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     The present application is related to the following co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. Patent Applications: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,977, filed Jul. 9, 2013, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REDUCING INSTABILITY WHEN UPGRADING SOFTWARE;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/938,066, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “MIGRATION SERVICES FOR SYSTEMS;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,885, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “DATABASE MODELING AND ANALYSIS;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,868, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “AUTOMATED DATABASE MIGRATION ARCHITECTURE;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,344, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “CLOUD SERVICES LOAD TESTING AND ANALYSIS;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,483, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “CLOUD SERVICES PERFORMANCE TUNING AND BENCHMARKING;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,988, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “SOLUTION TO GENERATE A SCRIPTSET FOR AN AUTOMATED DATABASE MIGRATION;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,545, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “ONLINE DATABASE MIGRATION;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,486, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “DYNAMIC MIGRATION SCRIPT MANAGEMENT;” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/937,970, filed Jul. 9, 2013, and entitled “ADVANCED CUSTOMER SUPPORT SERVICES ADVANCED SUPPORT CLOUD PORTAL.” The entire disclosure of the above listed applications are incorporated by reference into this application in their entirety and for all purposes. 
     BACKGROUND 
     The present disclosure relates in general to managing networked resources, and, more specifically, but not by way of limitation, to systems and methods of modeling of systems in view of migration. 
     Modern systems such as, for example, databases, operating systems, applications, and/or the like, are very complex, comprised of numerous components. Managing the systems, diagnosing problems, updating software, and installing new components may therefore be a very involved and complicated task. As a result, system administrator may spend considerable time determining problems, upgrading software, and installing new components. In many cases, specialists or specially trained technicians and administrators may be needed on site to perform the more complicated and specialized tasks. 
     The necessity to use specially trained technicians and administrators may increase costs and/or increase delays and uncertainty of maintaining and operating the systems. It may often take days or even weeks for a technician or administrator trained to be available to come to a specific site to upgrade software or diagnose a problem. The cost of travel, time, and time investment for the technician or administrator to understand the system and components before the work may begin may further add to the time delay and costs. 
     Therefore what is needed are improved methods and systems for providing services for modeling systems in view of migration. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY 
     In one aspect, a method for modeling a prospective systems migration between server systems is provided. Performance data associated with a plurality of applications in a first server system may be collected. A selection of a set of applications in the plurality of applications to migrate to a second server system may be processed. Combined performance data that estimates how the set of applications will perform on the second server system may be computed using at least some of the performance data. Based on the combined performance data, indications as to whether the set of applications should be migrated to the second server system may be provided. 
     In another aspect, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions for modeling a prospective systems migration between server systems is provided. The instructions, when executed by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to perform one or more of the following. Performance data associated with a plurality of applications in a first server system may be collected. A selection of a set of applications in the plurality of applications to migrate to a second server system may be processed. Combined performance data that estimates how the set of applications will perform on the second server system may be computed using at least some of the performance data. Based on the combined performance data, indications as to whether the set of applications should be migrated to the second server system may be provided. 
     In yet another aspect, a system for modeling a prospective systems migration between server systems is provided. One or more processors may be coupled to one or more network interfaces. The one or more processors may to execute instructions to perform one or more of the following. Performance data associated with a plurality of applications in a first server system may be collected. A selection of a set of applications in the plurality of applications to migrate to a second server system may be processed. Combined performance data that estimates how the set of applications will perform on the second server system may be computed using at least some of the performance data. Based on the combined performance data, indications as to whether the set of applications should be migrated to the second server system may be provided. 
     Further areas of applicability of the present disclosure will become apparent from the detailed description provided hereinafter. It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating various embodiments, are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to necessarily limit the scope of the disclosure. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       A further understanding of the nature and advantages of various embodiments may be realized by reference to the following figures. In the appended figures, similar components or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label. 
         FIG. 1  illustrates an embodiment of a support platform system. 
         FIG. 2  illustrates a flow diagram summarizing the life cycle of a service. 
         FIG. 3  illustrates a block diagram of the components of an embodiment of a portal. 
         FIG. 4  illustrates a block diagram of components of an exemplary operating environment in which various embodiments of the present invention may be implemented. 
         FIG. 5  illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary computer system in which embodiments of the present invention may be implemented. 
         FIG. 6  illustrates a block diagram that illustrates certain aspects of a lifecycle of a consolidation planning service in accordance with certain embodiments. 
         FIGS. 7A and 7B  illustrate a high-level block diagram of a cloud consolidation planning service in accordance with certain embodiments. 
         FIG. 8  illustrates a diagram of an architecture for implementing a systems consolidation planning service, according to certain embodiments. 
         FIG. 9  illustrates a block diagram of a data storage architecture for modeling the migration of systems and/or system components, according to certain embodiments. 
         FIG. 10  illustrates a flowchart of a method of modeling prospective system migration between systems, in accordance with certain embodiments. 
         FIG. 11  illustrates an interface for selecting source and target systems/system components, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 12  illustrates an interface for analyzing the memory usage of a set of systems/system components selected for migration, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 13  illustrates an interface for configuration analysis, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 14  illustrates an interface for analyzing memory usage on a target system, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 15  illustrates an interface for analyzing CPU usage on a target system, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 16  illustrates an interface for recommending whether a migration scenario should be carried out, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 17  illustrates an interface for providing recommendations for a migration scenario, according to some embodiments. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The ensuing description provides preferred exemplary embodiment(s) only, and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the disclosure. Rather, the ensuing description of the preferred exemplary embodiment(s) will provide those skilled in the art with an enabling description for implementing a preferred exemplary embodiment of the disclosure. It should be understood that various changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure as set forth in the appended claims. 
     Specific details are given in the following description to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. However, it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the embodiments maybe practiced without these specific details. For example without limitation, circuits may be shown in block diagrams in order not to obscure the embodiments in unnecessary detail. In other instances, well-known circuits, processes, algorithms, structures, and techniques may be shown without unnecessary detail in order to avoid obscuring the embodiments. 
     Also, it is noted that the embodiments may be described as a process which is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart may describe the operations as a sequential process, many of the operations can be performed in parallel or concurrently. In addition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. A process is terminated when its operations are completed, but could have additional steps not included in the figure. A process may correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a process corresponds to a function, its termination corresponds to a return of the function to the calling function or the main function. 
     Moreover, as disclosed herein, the term “storage medium” may represent one or more devices for storing data, including read only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic RAM, core memory, magnetic disk storage mediums, optical storage mediums, flash memory devices and/or other machine readable mediums for storing information. The term “computer-readable medium” includes, but is not limited to portable or fixed storage devices, optical storage devices, wireless channels and various other mediums capable of storing, containing or carrying instruction(s) and/or data. 
     Furthermore, embodiments may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description languages, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware or microcode, the program code or code segments to perform the necessary tasks may be stored in a machine readable medium such as storage medium. A processor(s) may perform the necessary tasks. A code segment may represent a procedure, a function, a subprogram, a program, a routine, a subroutine, a module, a software package, a class, or any combination of instructions, data structures, or program statements. A code segment may be coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passing and/or receiving information, data, arguments, parameters, or memory contents. Information, arguments, parameters, data, etc. may be passed, forwarded, or transmitted via any suitable means including memory sharing, message passing, token passing, network transmission, etc. 
     Certain embodiments according to the present disclosure may provide customers with legacy systems, such as, for example, databases, operating systems, applications, and/or the like, with effective migration planning and execution from non-cloud technologies to a cloud (e.g., a private cloud). Certain embodiments may provide a cloud migration service, including a migration engine, that provides an automated and validated approach to such migration. Such an approach may allow a customer to meet their Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Certain embodiments may create, test and document a migration strategy by executing a method that will reduce migration time and errors associated with migration that would otherwise impact the customer. Certain embodiments may successfully, efficiently, and automatically migrate legacy system(s) to a cloud within an allotted customer outage window. 
     Legacy systems may require administration such as periodic maintenance, software upgrades, migration, service deployment, diagnostics, performance tuning, and/or other services. Some organizations and businesses may employ system administrators or other personnel to perform some of these tasks. In some cases, some tasks may require special skills or knowledge outside the scope of a typical administrator and may require an outside expert or personnel to accomplish the tasks. In some cases, the administration tasks may be performed by an outside entity or engineer as a service to the organization or business. And, traditionally, services are provided based on multiple engagements with customer contacts, and creating a contract and service delivery plan tailored to the customer&#39;s needs. Service delivery itself is traditionally provided onsite and based on the specific knowledge and/or software the service engineer has access to and may differ from engineer to engineer. 
     Many of the administrative tasks and services associated with systems may be simplified and streamlined with a platform architecture that supports remote administration, development, and deployment of services. A system may be configured with a support cloud platform to allow automation of tasks and services, and reuse of components. The platform may be used to generate, store, deploy, execute, and track services through their complete life cycle. Services may be designed, made available for deployment, deployed to a customer, and monitored using the platform. 
     The platform may include a remote portal from which customers, administrators, and service provider may monitor, deploy, and analyze services for a remote customer&#39;s target system. The administration may be performed and controlled remotely and at least in part automatically. Services may be controlled and deployed to the target system using the portal eliminating the need for an administrator to be local to the target system. Likewise, the portal provides a rich set of tools for all customers and depends less on the individual skill and knowledge of the particular engineer performing service. 
     The support cloud platform may facilitate performing services in at least a partially automated and remote manner and may result in a number of important benefits to the service provider and the customer. For example, the platform may reduce the time to market for new services. A unified platform which enables services to be built using common features/components may reduce the time to develop and test the new service. Automation and consistency may allow the service provider to create a standard pricing and contracting model that can be re-used for new services. Sales and contracting time for new services may be reduced due the simplified pricing model. A service provider may create a modular service portfolio and can deliver services discretely or as part of a solution. The platform may reduce the cost of developing and delivering services. A common platform for all services may enable service designers and developers to leverage common features. As developers create more automated services, this reduces/eliminates the need for manual input, thus reducing the cost of delivering a service. The platform may provide for an improvement in global service quality and consistency since services may be designed, developed and delivered through the platform in at least a partially automated manner. The platform may also expand the market for services enabling services to be easily sold and delivered. 
     In some embodiments, the support cloud platform may be used for the development and deployment of services including assessment services assessing infrastructure, business data, and/or transactions of legacy systems. The services may leverage analytics to identify key indicators, patterns, and/or trends. Services may install, monitor, and/or perform setup of new software and/or hardware. Services may install and implement gold images or perform migrations, upgrades, and consolidations. In addition services may include provisioning, cloning, backup and recovery, install, setup, test, monitoring, recovery and restore, metering, chargeback, testing, load testing, functional testing, performance management and tuning, and/or the like. In some embodiments the services may leverage one service as a basis for other services. Details of some of the services may be found in the above cross-referenced U.S. patent applications. 
     Certain embodiments may provide for cloud modeling, including analytics, for systems and system components. Modeling according to various embodiments may concern any number of systems, subsystems, and/or system components, such as any one or combination of server(s), OS(s), mid-tier component(s), application(s), database(es), and/or the like. Cloud consolidation planning services for systems according to certain embodiments may include cloud modeling and may ensure that systems are properly modeled and sized for a customer&#39;s migration, consolidation, upgrade, patching process, and/or the like. Cloud modeling may allow for improved prediction of the size and workload of a cloud system by analysis of the source environments in view of transition to the cloud. Cloud consolidation planning services for systems may analyze and model key system areas such as system footprint, topology, performance and space trends, and configuration to a ‘future state’ environment, enabling more accurate planning of the transition. With certain embodiments, customer&#39;s business objectives for transitioning to the cloud may be gathered and factored into the analysis. Subject information of modeling according to various embodiments may include one or more customer configuration standards, hardware versions, software versions, workloads/applications (particularly, but not limited to, the most critical), platinum delta patches, platinum delta configuration, configuration settings, recommended changes for optimal placement, business drivers and release cycles, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), storage and compute requirements, and/or the like. 
     Cloud modeling may include a scenario-based modeling service. Scenarios may include but are not limited to any one or combination of tech refresh, database consolidation, data center optimization, and/or workload rationalization. This service may help customers achieve optimal performance and utilization across their datacenter environment and facilitate transformation into a cloud infrastructure. Certain embodiments may provide the features to make any consolidation seamless and manageable. Certain embodiments may provide proactive management and optimization of systems performance. 
     Certain embodiments may perform workload mapping to achieve an efficient and cost-effective use of a targeted migration environment without reducing existing capabilities which are key to the customer&#39;s business. In some embodiments, cloud consolidation planning services for systems may be executed prior to a system or systems undergoing a significant change, such upgrade, migration, consolidation, patching, configuration/capacity change, and/or the like. The modeling could be performed against test, development, and production environments in a non-disruptive fashion. The modeling may be designed to be pre-emptive, in that modeling services may be performed prior to any change. One benefit of the pre-emptive approach may be that issues/sizing are identified and resolved/implemented “upstream” in the modeling phase are less expensive than to resolve/implement “downstream” in the migration phase of a system&#39;s transformational lifecycle. 
     Some embodiments of cloud consolidation planning services for systems may include features for capturing a production workload measurement and recording it as a point-in-time baseline. A captured production workload may be mapped to a destination environment on a newer, more efficient server hardware platform. Whilst performing the workload comparison on development, test or production systems, certain embodiments may also capture future growth, storage, and annotation data for a more granular and accurate analysis. Certain embodiments may provide the ability to model and size identified systems into a grouping of similar system characteristics based on behaviors, configurations and footprints. For instance, certain embodiments may capture, model, and identify to the customer which groupings of databases, can coexist based on behaviors, configurations and footprints. 
     Findings and prioritized recommendations may result from cloud modeling. By way of example without limitation, a mapping feature may provide for virtual versus physical mapping based on the types of systems, databases, business units, operational constraints, etc. A detailed description and comparison of workloads grouped by application may be generated. One application may have multiple servers listed below it. Servers may be listed as standalone, clustered or load balanced. Mapping these servers as virtual instances across a single frame or multiple frames could be a key recommendation. Further analysis may include business unit, order of priority, and revenue impact of a system. 
     As another example, the modeling may provide an identification of system configurations, including which systems cannot be relocated until they are updated via patches or by upgrading and which systems cannot be relocated at all due to business constraints. Which operating environments are compatible may be identified, as well as any rules governing the compatibility matrices associated with the source environments. Consolidation options for systems may be identified. Also, for example, with systems and other key performance data in the environment being reviewed, the modeling may identify resource bottlenecks and/or areas for optimization (e.g., based on production load captured). In some embodiments, the modeling may include running scripts to identify a platinum delta (i.e., a deviation from an optimal configuration) and present a report regarding the results. As yet another example, the modeling could include running configuration checks against the system (e.g., with ABIScan and other specific tools) to check for any configuration issues/health issues proactively. 
     Various embodiments will now be discussed in greater detail with reference to the accompanying figures, beginning with  FIG. 1 . 
       FIG. 1  illustrates an embodiment of a support cloud platform  100 . The platform may be used to through the life cycle of a service. Services may be designed, made available for deployment, deployed to a customer, and monitored using the platform. The customer data center  102  may include one or more target systems  112 ,  114  that may be the target of the services provided by the platform. The target systems may be servers, computers, rack systems, and the like that run or execute a database and/or other database software used by a customer. A target system may be a hardware or software entity that can have service delivered and may be a host, database, web logic service, and/or the like. In the customer data center  102 , the target systems  112 ,  114  may be managed by an administrator local to the data center  102 . The administrator may have physical access to the target systems  112 ,  114 . The cloud platform  100 , may provide for the administration and other services of the target systems via a remote interface from a remote location. A gateway  110 , located on the data center  102  provides remote access to the data center  102  and one or more target systems  112 ,  114 . The gateway  110  may be a hardware or virtual software appliance installed at the customer data center. The gateway  110  connects to a production cloud  104  of a service provider via a secure connection using a communication module  106  over a network  132 . The gateway  110  may optionally have an interface module  108  allowing control of the interactions of gateway  110  to the production cloud  104  of the service provider. 
     Services may be generated and developed using a common service development framework of the platform. The common service development framework may include a service design  130 , delivery engineering  128 , and engineering infrastructure  126  modules. The common service development framework may leverage common components that can be used throughout the delivery process (manual and/or automated), and may enable the efficient design, development, testing and release of a service. The common service development framework of the platform enables at least partial automation of the development of a service. 
     The platform enables delivery engineers to automate the service they are developing. In some embodiments, the development of services may be automated or simplified with the use of reusable components. For example, many of the same deployment, execution, and error handling function used in the services may be designed as reusable components. The components may be reused in many services allowing the design and coding of the service to be focused on the new core functionality of the service. Using the platform, services may be designed and implemented in one or more central locations. A centralized service design and development platform enables a hierarchical and structured service design with reusable components and modules. The development of a service may be, at least in part, automated since a large portion of the components of a service may be assembled from existing reusable components. 
     After the services are designed, developed, and tested, they may be stored at the production cloud  104 . The production cloud  104  may include a library of services  122  and a content library  124 . The services and content may be deployed from the production cloud  104  to one or more target systems  112 ,  114  at a customer data center  102 . The deployment, monitoring, and the like of services may be arranged with interaction from the portal  118  and commerce module  120  at the production cloud  104  and the gateway  110  and an interface module  108  at the customer data center  102  via the communication modules  106 ,  116 . The design, deployment and monitoring of the service may be performed remotely from production cloud without the need of an administrator or engineer at the customer&#39;s data center  102 . The portal  118  of the platform may provide for remote control and administration of services, control of deployment, and analysis of results. 
     The platform of  FIG. 1  may be used to develop, deploy, and manage services for the customer data center  102  and target systems  112 ,  114 . A gateway  110  has access to the target systems  112 ,  114 . Services, in the forms of software, scripts, functions, and the like, may be downloaded from the production cloud  104 . The commerce module  120  and the portal for the production cloud  104  provide an interface, selection tools, monitoring tools, for selecting the services, and monitoring the services to be deployed in the customer data center  102 . An administrator at the customer data center  102  may view, select, and monitor the services using the portal  118  and commerce module  120 . The customer may access the portal  118  and commerce module  120  using interface module  108  at the customer data center  102 . The interface module may have a direct or an indirect access to the portal  118  and the commerce module via the communication module  106 . For example, using the platform  100 , a service may be selected using the commerce module  120 . The commerce module  120  may be accessed using the interface module  108 . Once a service is selected and configured for the target systems  112 ,  114 , the service may be deployed from the production cloud  104  to the customer data center  102  via the gateway  110 . The gateway may deploy the service on to the target systems. The gateway  110  may be used to gather data statistics, monitor services, and receive system information about the customer data center and the target systems. The data may be processed, analyzed, and transmitted to the production cloud. The data may be used to suggest or deploy services to the customer, present statistics or metrics of the customer&#39;s target servers using the portal  118 . 
       FIG. 2  shows a flow diagram showing a lifecycle of a service in the context of the platform from  FIG. 1 . A service begins its life cycle when a service specification is developed using the platform at block  202 . The service specification may define the characteristics of the service, requirements, actions the service may take, data the service may monitor or collect, the operating characteristics of the systems of the service and/or the like. The service specification may be developed, at least in part, based on the data received from the platform. Data about customer&#39;s target systems, usage, statistics, and the like may be received from the customer&#39;s data center via the gateway  110 . The data may be used determine the specification of the service. For example, data received from the gateway regarding customer&#39;s target systems may indicate that a database on the system may be running on outdated software. A service for upgrading and migrating the database to the new software may be needed. Based on the data received from the gateway the specification for the service may be defined. The data received from the gateway may, for example, include the software versions, database types, sizes, information about the target systems, and the like. 
     The service specification may be developed in the service design  130  module of the platform. The service design  130  module may include automated tools for analyzing data to determine the service specification. The service design may include input from a development team, management, customer, and/or the like. 
     Once the specification of the service is defined, the service may be designed in block  204  at the delivery engineering module  128  of the platform  100 . The specification may be used by the delivery engineering module  128  to design, develop, and test the service from the specification. The delivery engineering module  128  may assemble one or more existing blocks of code, scripts, functions, and/or the like to implements the service described by the service specification. The delivery engineering  128  module may, at least in part, automatically change parameters for existing services to match the specification for a new service. For example, a database migration service may have many of the same common features independently of the characteristics of the migration. A service for a specific migration may use an existing migration service and disable some unnecessary features, such as data compression, for example. Delivery engineering  128  may in some embodiments comprise of one or more developers who write scripts, code, and the like to generate a program to implement the service. In some embodiments delivery engineering may be an automated system that implements the service from the specification. 
     The developed service may be passed on to the engineering infrastructure module  126  for quality assurance in block  206 . During quality assurance, the service may be tested and content for each service may be developed. The engineering infrastructure may employ a test farm of servers and sample target system that may mirror the parameters, specifications, and characteristics of customer target systems. The test farm may be used to analyze and stress test the service in a rigorous and monitored manner. The service may further be analyzed and redeveloped into reusable components to allow other services to reuse the core functionality and functions developed for the service. 
     In block  208  the tested service may be passed on to production to the production cloud  104 . In block  208  the service is formally released and is ready for a customer download to the customer gateway  110 . At the same time, the service may be release to other channels such as marketing, sales, pricing and contracting sites, commerce channels, and the like. The service may be stored or made available at the services module  122 . 
     The service may be made available for purchase at the commerce module  120  of the platform  100  in block  210 . The commerce module may include a generated user interface (UI) that a customer may access via a network and a browser and/or the interface module  108  at the customer data center  102 . A customer may use the commerce module  120  to search and browse for service offerings. The commerce module  120  may show the features, compatibility, price, and the like for the service and the specific customer. A customer may purchase, review and agree to contract terms for the service, request assistance, and/or the like using the commerce module  120 . A service may be made purchased and immediately or after a period of validation made available for delivery and setup at the customer target systems. Validation may include authorization of the customer&#39;s target system, payment validation, and/or the like. 
     After purchase the service and/or content may be downloaded at block  212 . After purchase a customer may be provided with access to the portal  118  to initiate service and/or content delivery. The portal may deploy a service and/or content package to the customer&#39;s gateway  110 . The gateway may then install and/or execute the service and/or content on the target systems automatically. The execution and deployment may be controlled through the portal  118  which may be remote from the customer&#39;s data center  102 . During and after the deployment and execution of the service and/or content, the gateway may transmit data to the portal regarding the execution of the service, data gathered by the service, status, and/or other data and metrics. 
     During and after the deployment a customer may access the portal  118  and review the service output in block  214 . The portal  118  may provide a summary of the data gathered by the service and transmitted to the portal via the gateway  110 . The portal may provide the customer with a full view of all service engagements with the service provider, and also may provide the customer with a deeper understanding of their systems and applications. The portal may comprise and interface and a back-end to facilitate functions of the portal  118  and interact with other parts of the platform  100 . 
       FIG. 3  shows a block diagram of the structure of the portal  118 . The portal  118  may be based on a layered architecture. The portal may be divided into four layers: the interface layer  336 , service layer  338 , common component layer  340 , and a support repositories layer  342 . These layers are responsible for the handling of service and customer information and the presentation and orchestration of services. The layers may be used to interface and communicate with the gateway  110 , enable remote administrators to interact with data and gateway to deliver service, and/or enable customers to receive service via portal and collaborate with service provider. 
     The backend of the portal may include a support repositories layer  342 . The layer  342  may be used to leverage various sources of data to enrich and or deliver services. The layer may include repositories or access to repositories that may include configuration, patch, SR information and data, and the like. The backend of the portal may further include a common component layer  340 . Elements of the layer  340  may include components that are used in support of services during and after deployment. Elements may include an account management module  316  that provides authentication and authorization and security to the portal and the service. Customers may be provided access to the portal, and also granted access/entitlement to one or more services. The layer  340  may further include a documents module  318  which provides the methods for managing documents using the portal. Furthermore the layer  340  includes a service request module for managing the various requests and steps used in the delivery of a service. A configuration management module  322  may be used to manage the configurations associated with a customer and service engagements. A business intelligence module  324  may be used to identify high value information. 
     The service layer  338  of the portal  118  may include specific modules and functions required for each service. Each type of service may include defined workflow and logic, security, and/or the like. Each type of service may include a module for managing the special workflow, logic and other requirements for the service. Modules for modeling  304 , migration  306 , load testing  308 , benchmarking  310 , cloud imaging  312 , monitoring  314  may be implemented in the layer  338 . In some embodiments, the one or more migration modules  306  may include one or more components, such as a migration engine, configured to provide migration services discussed herein. 
     Finally, the interface layer  336  of the portal  118  provides an interface such as a graphical user interface  302  that may be used by the customer, service provider, and or administrator. The interface layer represents the presentation layer for the services. The user interface  302  of the interface layer  336  may be a responsive web design and, as such, may work on multiple devices (e.g.: desktop, phone, phablet, tablet). The UI of the portal may provide a common service interface for the services and/or content. The UI may represent and present available, installed, active, and/or like support cloud services in a consistent interface with a similar look and feel. Common user interface components may be used. Navigation methodology may be based on rich service summary reporting with drill-down for more detail. Services may be tightly coupled with customer configurations. Technical data required for service delivery (analysis, verification, reporting) may be collected automatically. Analytics may be used extensively to help reduce the information overload by creating ‘easy to consume’ dashboards and reports. 
     Each of the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented in a general-purpose computer system.  FIG. 4  is a block diagram illustrating components of an exemplary operating environment in which various embodiments of the present invention may be implemented. The system  400  can include one or more user computers  405 ,  410 , which may be used to operate a client, whether a dedicated application, web browser, etc. The user computers  405 ,  410  can be general purpose personal computers (including, merely by way of example, personal computers and/or laptop computers running various versions of Microsoft Corp.&#39;s Windows and/or Apple Corp.&#39;s Macintosh operating systems) and/or workstation computers running any of a variety of commercially-available UNIX or UNIX-like operating systems (including without limitation, the variety of GNU/Linux operating systems). These user computers  405 ,  410  may also have any of a variety of applications, including one or more development systems, database client and/or server applications, and web browser applications. Alternatively, the user computers  405 ,  410  may be any other electronic device, such as a thin-client computer, Internet-enabled mobile telephone, and/or personal digital assistant, capable of communicating via a network (e.g., the network  415  described below) and/or displaying and navigating web pages or other types of electronic documents. Although the exemplary system  400  is shown with two user computers, any number of user computers may be supported. 
     In some embodiments, the system  400  may also include a network  415 . The network may can be any type of network familiar to those skilled in the art that can support data communications using any of a variety of commercially-available protocols, including without limitation TCP/IP, SNA, IPX, AppleTalk, and the like. Merely by way of example, the network  415  may be a local area network (“LAN”), such as an Ethernet network, a Token-Ring network and/or the like; a wide-area network; a virtual network, including without limitation a virtual private network (“VPN”); the Internet; an intranet; an extranet; a public switched telephone network (“PSTN”); an infra-red network; a wireless network (e.g., a network operating under any of the IEEE 802.11 suite of protocols, the Bluetooth protocol known in the art, and/or any other wireless protocol); and/or any combination of these and/or other networks such as GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, 3G, 5.5 G, CDMA, CDMA2000, WCDMA, EVDO etc. 
     The system may also include one or more server computers  420 ,  425 ,  430  which can be general purpose computers and/or specialized server computers (including, merely by way of example, PC servers, UNIX servers, mid-range servers, mainframe computers rack-mounted servers, etc.). One or more of the servers (e.g.,  430 ) may be dedicated to running applications, such as a business application, a web server, application server, etc. Such servers may be used to process requests from user computers  405 ,  410 . The applications can also include any number of applications for controlling access to resources of the servers  420 ,  425 ,  430 . 
     The web server can be running an operating system including any of those discussed above, as well as any commercially-available server operating systems. The web server can also run any of a variety of server applications and/or mid-tier applications, including HTTP servers, FTP servers, CGI servers, database servers, Java servers, business applications, and the like. The server(s) also may be one or more computers which can be capable of executing programs or scripts in response to the user computers  405 ,  410 . As one example, a server may execute one or more web applications. The web application may be implemented as one or more scripts or programs written in any programming language, such as Java™, C, C# or C++, and/or any scripting language, such as Perl, Python, or TCL, as well as combinations of any programming/scripting languages. The server(s) may also include database servers, including without limitation those commercially available from Oracle®, Microsoft®, Sybase®, IBM® and the like, which can process requests from database clients running on a user computer  405 ,  410 . 
     In some embodiments, an application server may create web pages dynamically for displaying on an end-user (client) system. The web pages created by the web application server may be forwarded to a user computer  405  via a web server. Similarly, the web server can receive web page requests and/or input data from a user computer and can forward the web page requests and/or input data to an application and/or a database server. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the functions described with respect to various types of servers may be performed by a single server and/or a plurality of specialized servers, depending on implementation-specific needs and parameters. 
     The system  400  may also include one or more databases  435 . The database(s)  435  may reside in a variety of locations. By way of example, a database  435  may reside on a storage medium local to (and/or resident in) one or more of the computers  405 ,  410 ,  415 ,  425 ,  430 . Alternatively, it may be remote from any or all of the computers  405 ,  410 ,  415 ,  425 ,  430 , and/or in communication (e.g., via the network  420 ) with one or more of these. In a particular set of embodiments, the database  435  may reside in a storage-area network (“SAN”) familiar to those skilled in the art. Similarly, any necessary files for performing the functions attributed to the computers  405 ,  410 ,  415 ,  425 ,  430  may be stored locally on the respective computer and/or remotely, as appropriate. In one set of embodiments, the database  435  may be a relational database, such as Oracle 20g, that is adapted to store, update, and retrieve data in response to SQL-formatted commands. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates an exemplary computer system  500 , in which various embodiments of the present invention may be implemented. The system  500  may be used to implement any of the computer systems described above. The computer system  500  is shown comprising hardware elements that may be electrically coupled via a bus  555 . The hardware elements may include one or more central processing units (CPUs)  505 , one or more input devices  510  (e.g., a mouse, a keyboard, etc.), and one or more output devices  515  (e.g., a display device, a printer, etc.). The computer system  500  may also include one or more storage device  520 . By way of example, storage device(s)  520  may be disk drives, optical storage devices, solid-state storage device such as a random access memory (“RAM”) and/or a read-only memory (“ROM”), which can be programmable, flash-updateable and/or the like. 
     The computer system  500  may additionally include a computer-readable storage media reader  525   a , a communications system  530  (e.g., a modem, a network card (wireless or wired), an infra-red communication device, etc.), and working memory  540 , which may include RAM and ROM devices as described above. In some embodiments, the computer system  500  may also include a processing acceleration unit  535 , which can include a DSP, a special-purpose processor and/or the like. 
     The computer-readable storage media reader  525   a  can further be connected to a computer-readable storage medium  525   b , together (and, optionally, in combination with storage device(s)  520 ) comprehensively representing remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storage devices plus storage media for temporarily and/or more permanently containing computer-readable information. The communications system  530  may permit data to be exchanged with the network  520  and/or any other computer described above with respect to the system  500 . 
     The computer system  500  may also comprise software elements, shown as being currently located within a working memory  540 , including an operating system  545  and/or other code  550 , such as an application program (which may be a client application, web browser, mid-tier application, RDBMS, etc.). It should be appreciated that alternate embodiments of a computer system  500  may have numerous variations from that described above. For example, customized hardware might also be used and/or particular elements might be implemented in hardware, software (including portable software, such as applets), or both. Further, connection to other computing devices such as network input/output devices may be employed. Software of computer system  500  may include code  550  for implementing embodiments of the present invention as described herein. 
     Each of the methods described herein may be implemented by a computer system, such as computer system  500  in  FIG. 5 . Each step of these methods may be executed automatically by the computer system, and/or may be provided with inputs/outputs involving a user. For example, a user may provide inputs for each step in a method, and each of these inputs may be in response to a specific output requesting such an input, wherein the output is generated by the computer system. Each input may be received in response to a corresponding requesting output. Furthermore, inputs may be received from a user, from another computer system as a data stream, retrieved from a memory location, retrieved over a network, requested from a web service, and/or the like. Likewise, outputs may be provided to a user, to another computer system as a data stream, saved in a memory location, sent over a network, provided to a web service, and/or the like. In short, each step of the methods described herein may be performed by a computer system, and may involve any number of inputs, outputs, and/or requests to and from the computer system which may or may not involve a user. Those steps not involving a user may be said to be performed by the computed without human intervention. Therefore, it will be understood in light of this disclosure, that each step and each method described herein may be altered to include an input and output to and from a user, or may be done automatically by a computer system. Furthermore, some embodiments of each of the methods described herein may be implemented as a set of instructions stored on a tangible, non-transitory storage medium to form a tangible software product. 
     Nearly all software-based systems are often required to undergo periodic upgrades in order to take advantage of new computing technologies. During the migration process, a customer may wish to migrate one or more old systems/system components over to a fewer number of new systems/system components. Such system components could include any one or combination of server(s), OS(s), mid-tier component(s), application(s), database(es), and/or the like. For example, customers often ask the question “if I were to move database A and database B over to this new machine, would it work?” Unfortunately, answering this question requires a great deal of analysis and work. Configuration assessments, performance assessments, and other system evaluations may take as long as 30 days. Customers may have hundreds or even thousands of system components such as databases, and thus determining which system components can be migrated to new systems may quickly become a very difficult task. 
     Embodiments described herein may utilize an existing Enterprise Manager to consistently and/or periodically monitor and model the customer systems. An Enterprise Manager agent may be employed to collect and monitor modeling data associated with the customer&#39;s systems. This information may be uploaded to a cloud service through a gateway that resides on a customer&#39;s Enterprise Manager system. The cloud service can then perform calculations and analysis on the data recorded by the agent in order to provide a recommendation for specific migration scenarios, e.g., whether or not server A and application B can be moved to a new system. Additionally, engineers may be provided with other analyses relevant to systems migration, such as security considerations, data integrity considerations, data criticality considerations, and/or the like. 
       FIG. 6  is a block diagram that illustrates certain aspects of a lifecycle  600  of a modeling service, in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. The modeling service may provide an automated and validated approach that may allow a customer to meet their recovery time objective. The modeling service  600  may provide customers with legacy systems, such as, for example, databases, operating systems, applications, and/or the like, with effective migration planning for migration from non-cloud technologies to a cloud (e.g., a private cloud). With an automated and validated approach that may allow a customer to meet their recovery time objective, the modeling service  600  may also allow for improved prediction of the size and workload of a cloud system by analysis of the source environments in view of transition to the cloud. One goal may be to replace existing system components which are approaching end of service life (EOSL) with new system components in a virtualized environment in order to reduce overall power, maintenance and support costs in select data centers. An objective may be to replicate the source operating environment on either standalone or virtual machine platforms. 
     One phase of the modeling service lifecycle may correspond to a service kick-off and onboarding phase  602 . The portal may be initialized for access as required. In some embodiments, one or more automated process flows may facilitate the provisioning of project contacts with accounts, the right roles, and security access. Onboarding may be performed in various ways in various embodiments. For example, onboarding may be initiated by a customer or a service representative with the sending the customer/customer team one or more notifications with links for onboarding. Any one or combination of workflows, chat windows, web conference sessions, videos, video communication sessions, and/or the like may be provided to outline service delivery processes, outline tooling installation, setup and connectivity, outline key scenarios, answer questions, talk through the pre-flight questionnaire workflows, and/or the like. 
     One phase of the modeling service lifecycle may correspond to a pre-flight questionnaire workflow phase to capture customer-furnished data, as indicated by block  604 . The customer-furnished data may include a customer&#39;s key priorities for the service and detailed information for the service (performance data, annotation, collection time period, etc.). For example, business objectives may include refreshing technology to improve TCO, refreshing technology to improve performance, reducing floor space and power, improving availability, and/or the like. Process flows may capture information detailing applications to be considered for transition, including information such as function, location, SLAs, maintenance windows, point of contact, list of hosts and targets which it consists of, configuration standards, hardware versions, software versions, workloads (particularly, but not limited to, the most critical), platinum delta patches, platinum delta configuration, configuration settings, recommended changes for optimal placement, business drivers and release cycles, storage and compute requirements, and/or the like. Captured information may indicate desired time period(s) for running the performance and other data capture to give a strong representative sample for trending analysis. Destination systems for the modeling may be identified. A delivery date for modeling deliverables may be defined. In some embodiments, process flows may be directed to various customer application teams. 
     One phase of the modeling service lifecycle may correspond to a gateway check and/or installation phase, as indicated by block  606 . It may be determined if a gateway  110  is available to give access to/from one or more customer sites in order to allow service delivery. If a gateway  110  is available, the gateway configuration may be examined to ensure that the gateway is properly configured, including the agents, with configuring of the gateway  110  and the agents being performed as necessary. If a gateway  110  is not available, the gateway may be downloaded for installation. It may be installed at a customer site and configured along with the agents and plug-ins using auto-discovery to set up workflow for the service. Agents may be deployed on all relevant hosts identified via pre-flight phase. The ASR and EM Harvester may be set up and validated. 
     One phase of the modeling service lifecycle may correspond to a legacy environment data collection phase, as indicated by block  608 . Such data collection includes hardware and software data collection. Another phase of the modeling service lifecycle may correspond to a modeling and analytics phase, as indicated by block  610 . Still another phase of the modeling service lifecycle may correspond to a service findings phase, as indicated by block  612 . Certain aspects of the phases are explained in greater detail with reference to the following figures. The diagram may represent an overview of certain aspects of such a lifecycle  600  of the migration service with the overall flow involved according to certain embodiments. Though certain aspects may be separated for the sake of description, it should be understood that certain steps may overlap, and may be performed simultaneously or substantially simultaneously. 
       FIGS. 7A and 7B  depict a high-level block diagram of certain aspects of information handling for a modeling service  700 , including analytics service, for systems and system components, in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Teachings of the present disclosure may be implemented in a variety of configurations. As such, the aspects comprising the services, systems, engines, and/or methods described herein may be shuffled, re-ordered, and/or omitted in any suitable manner and may depend on the implementation chosen. Moreover, while the following aspects may be separated for the sake of description, it should be understood that certain steps may be performed simultaneously or substantially simultaneously. 
     The pre-flight information acquisition  738  may correspond to the pre-flight questionnaire workflow phase, as discussed herein. Accordingly, the pre-flight information acquisition  738  may include one or more automated process flows to capture customer-furnished data. In some embodiments, various points in the process could include any one or combination of suitable interface points via the portal with the customer and/or advanced customer service. By way of example without limitation, such interface points could include one or more those depicted by CU (for customer interface) and/or ACS (for advance customer service). 
     The cloud modeling service  700  may analyze the source environment based on one or more target estimation components  702 . In various embodiments, an estimated target design  720  may be based at least in part on any one or combination of the inventory assets  704 , virtualization rules  706 , M-values  708 , estimated utilization  710 , sizing  712 , current hardware  714 , estimated capacity  716 , and/or application grouping  720 . The estimated target design  720  may be an initial design that is later developed. 
     Various assets of the legacy system may be inventoried, as indicated by block  704 . Modeling according to various embodiments may concern such assets as any number of legacy systems, subsystems, and/or system components, such as any one or combination of server(s), OS(s), mid-tier component(s), application(s), database(es), and/or the like. System topology and footprint information may be determined. 
     Virtualization rules  706  may be based at least in part on any one or combination of:
         Application classification, such as designation of “mission critical” classification(s), mid-level classification(s), low-level classification(s), for example.   Application workload   Software licensing   Use of network file system server(s) and user root privileges   Loadable kernel modules and system kernel calls   Data security issues on shared frame   Security requirements   Use of clustering software   Known resource bottlenecks   Application dependencies   Change of host and IP address   Use of application NAS   Vtiers or portable application containers   Use of load balancers   Firewall rules       

     In some embodiments, one or more M-values  708  (also known as the Oracle Sun Constant Performance Metric, or SCPM) may offer a representation of the processing potential of a server running workloads. M-values  708  are available across different product lines and releases. By way of example without limitations, M-values  708  may be available for each unique combination of:
         Server range   CPU type (including clock speed and E-cache size)   Number of CPUs   OS release
 
M-values  708  may take into account the performance of a number of industry-standard workloads, including OLTP, DSS, and Java-based workloads. M-values  708  may be revised according to more accurate scaling or speedup information when such becomes available.
       

     The estimated utilization  710  may include any one or combination of CPU utilization, memory utilization, and/or projected capacity growth, say, for the next X months/years. As indicated by block  712 , cloud consolidation planning services for systems according to certain embodiments may ensure that systems are properly modeled and sized for a customer&#39;s migration, consolidation, upgrade, patching process, and/or the like. 
     In various embodiments, hardware data collection  730  may be based on any one or combination of shared service determinations  722 , capacity plan modeling  724 , monitoring tools  726 , capacity tools  728 , and/or the like. One or more shared services determinations  722  may indicate architecture information corresponding to architectures shared between older systems and newer systems (e.g., between older SPARC based systems and the latest SPARC architectures). The capacity plan modeling  724  may include details related to CPU utilization, memory utilization, space left in the rack, remaining capacity of target systems (which may indicate if more inventory is needed), and capacity in each geography or data facility. The modeling tools  726  may include the use of Consolidation Planner (a feature within Enterprise Manager) and advanced reporting capabilities within the portal via the gateway. The capacity tools may also be repeated through the Consolidation Planner (feature within Enterprise Manager), but additional intelligence may be accessed via the gateway by way of M-values to determine max capacity of both source and target systems. From the hardware data collection  730 , information on validated hardware assets  732 , assets utilization  734 , and/or current capacity  736  may be determined. Validated hardware assets  732  may be inventory assets  704  determined to be in scope for consolidation. 
     In various embodiments, application data collection  744  may be based on applying tools such as Explorer and ABI scan  704  and/or application group information acquisition  742  process flows. From the application data collection  744 , information on validated application assets  746  and/or application virtualization profiles  748  may be determined. Application virtualization profiles  748  may indicate details of applications, specifying what can be virtualized, what business groups can have access to particular virtualized applications, etc. Application virtualization profiles  748  may provide a high-level description of the source environment and the proposed target environment. 
     With data collection  730 ,  744 , the system components may be configured for monitoring for any suitable time period that allows for a representative sample of any one or combination of configuration data, performance data, workload data, storage data, space data, and/or the like. In some embodiments, data collection may be performed with Enterprise Manager and may be effected through agents, which may have plugins used to monitor and manage a specific target type. The data collection  730 ,  744  may allow for up/down availability. 
     Reference architecture  750  may be a representation of the proposed target environment and may include items such as maintenance on systems, whether and which systems/system components need to be highly available, where system systems/system components will reside, how systems/system components will be racked and stacked, whether, which, and to what extent systems/system components can be virtualized, and/or the like. Proof of concept  752  may be limited to a certain number of systems, say, a minimum of 50 systems. For a fixed scope service, there may be a required amount of time needed to establish a working consolidation planning service process. 
     The modeling  756  may analyze and model key system areas such as system footprint, topology, performance and space trends, and configuration to a ‘future state’ environment, enabling more accurate transition planning. The modeling  756  may include scenario-based modeling. Scenarios may include but are not limited to any one or combination of tech refresh, database consolidation, data center optimization, and/or workload rationalization. Consolidation scenarios, for example, may be based on selected utilization targets, such as 80% utilization, 90% utilization, or any suitable utilization value. By way of example without limitation, various embodiments may measure, analyze, determine, address, resolve, validate, and/or optimize any one or combination of:
         Application performance and scalability;   Application Server component optimization and configuration;   Correct distribution of processes and users across application servers to allow the application(s) to achieve optimum usage of hardware resources, and to allow software deployments to perform as required as more users and processes are added;   Underlying RDBMS optimization and configuration;   Server utilization;   Workflow setup;   Performance or scalability issues;   Sizing of hardware for running server resources and confirmation that these process configurations and set-up meet established business requirements;   Sizing of client and server resources;   Areas for tuning that will improve performance of specific server processes; and/or the like.       

     The modeling  756  may perform workload mapping to achieve an efficient and cost-effective use of a targeted migration environment without reducing existing capabilities which are key to the customer&#39;s business. In some embodiments, cloud consolidation planning service may be executed prior to a system or systems undergoing a significant change, such upgrade, migration, consolidation, patching, configuration/capacity change, and/or the like. The modeling  756  could be performed against test, development, and production environments in a non-disruptive fashion. The modeling  756  may be designed to be pre-emptive, in that modeling services may be performed prior to any change. One benefit of the pre-emptive approach may be that issues/sizing are identified and resolved/implemented “upstream” in the modeling phase are less expensive than to resolve/implement “downstream” in the migration phase of a system&#39;s transformational lifecycle. 
     Some embodiments of cloud consolidation planning service may include features for capturing a production workload measurement and recording it as a point-in-time baseline. A captured production workload may be mapped to a destination environment on a newer, more efficient server hardware platform. Whilst performing the workload comparison on development, test or production systems, certain embodiments may also capture future growth, storage, and annotation data for a more granular and accurate analysis. Certain embodiments may provide the ability to model and size identified systems into a grouping of similar system characteristics based on behaviors, configurations and footprints. For instance, certain embodiments may capture, model, and identify to the customer which groupings of databases, can coexist based on behaviors, configurations and footprints. 
     In some embodiments, the modeling  756  may include running scripts to identify a platinum delta (i.e., a deviation from an optimal configuration) and present a report regarding the results. As yet another example, the modeling could include running configuration checks against the system (e.g., with ABIScan and/or other tools) to check for any configuration issues/health issues proactively. 
     In some embodiments, the modeling  756  may determine the “best fit” virtual target configuration. Such a configuration may be based at least in part on one or more of the following. Applications targets may designated to run in particular zones and/or virtual machines according to customer standards. Each source server workload may be mapped to an equivalent unit on an appropriate target server. Production from development/QA/test environments may be separately designated to separate physical servers. Existing physical RAM may be mapped to virtual container/VM RAM. Sizing of target zones may be based on measured utilization plus projected growth of existing server computational resources (M-value). Target physical servers may be designated with a reserve minimum of total CPU resources (e.g., 30% or any suitable value), which may include a portion for the global zone and a portion for excessive CPU cycles incurred by the containers to provide sufficient headroom. Container memory sizes can be increased in discrete increments of X GB as needed (with a predetermined minimum of allocated per container, such as 2 GB or any suitable value). High availability applications may not be grouped on the same physical server. High availability frames may be identified ahead of time to avoid delays in cluster hardware/software installation. Application maintenance windows may be the same for the target physical server (frame). One goal may be to achieve a consolidation ratio from source to target (e.g., 5:1 or any suitable ratio). One goal may be to not exceed X number of containers per physical server. Containers may be planned to go live with shares based resource controls in place to prevent performance issues and to properly isolate the container. NAS mounts may not be available once a container is configured on the target server. Host-based mirroring may be included when a disk group size meets a predetermined threshold (e.g., 110 GB or any suitable value). 
     Findings and prioritized recommendations may result from cloud modeling, such as one or more modeling reports  750  and a road map  752 . The road map  752  may indicate what hardware platforms the customer ultimately wants to use and what methodology will be used to migrate the systems. The road map  752  may correspond to a blueprint developed to provide a detailed design of the proposed target environment. The blueprint may include a selection of the method by which application data is to be moved from the source storage to the target storage. The blueprint may be refined based on the migration service described in one or more cross-referenced applications. 
     A mapping feature may provide for virtual versus physical mapping based on the types of systems, databases, business units, operational constraints, etc. A detailed description and comparison of workloads grouped by application may be generated. One application may have multiple servers listed below it. Servers may be listed as standalone, clustered or load balanced. Mapping these servers as virtual instances across a single frame or multiple frames could be a key recommendation. Further analysis may include business unit, order of priority, and revenue impact of a system. 
     As another example, the modeling may provide an identification of system configurations, including which systems cannot be relocated until they are updated via patches or by upgrading and which systems cannot be relocated at all due to business constraints. Which operating environments are compatible may be identified, as well as any rules governing the compatibility matrices associated with the source environments. Consolidation options for systems may be identified. Also, for example, with systems and other key performance data in the environment being reviewed, the modeling may identify resource bottlenecks and/or areas for optimization (e.g., based on production load captured). 
       FIG. 8  illustrates a diagram of an architecture for implementing a system modeling and analytics service, in accordance with certain embodiments. The modeling and analytics service may be designed to help customers and their business teams to perform, for example, a workload mapping exercise to achieve the most efficient and cost-effective use of their targeted migration environment without reducing their existing capabilities. The modeling and analytics service may be performed using a customer&#39;s existing system/database estate as an input. For example, a customer IT system  802  may be used. The customer IT system  802  may include multiple environments such as development, test and production environments, system components, databases, and/or the like. In many cases, systems and system components in the customer IT system  802  may be implemented with legacy hardware that is no longer considered state-of-the-art or in a system that is no longer supported as a platform or as a current-supported software version. 
     In some embodiments, the modeling and analytics service may be designed to be proactive, in that it is performed during an assessment phase of a system consolidation process. The results of the modeling and analytics service may be used to plan the actual system consolidation and migration steps. For example, the modeling and analytics service may analyze development, test, and/or production systems prior to planning the actual system consolidation. One key benefit of this preemptive service is the ability to model and size system scenarios that group similar systems/system components based on behaviors, configurations, and/or outputs. The grouping of similar systems/system components may be done in accordance with a set of best practices as identified by the customer. By performing this analysis in advance of the actual system consolidation process, this assessment phase may greatly reduce the risk of rising costs to resolve migration problems. 
     In order to collect performance data, an agent  808  may be deployed on the customer IT system  802 . For example, an Enterprise Manager Agent may be installed as a collector that gathers information in response to detected events, such as a database going on/off line. These agents may be configured to provide performance data to an Enterprise Manager  814 . The collected data may be selected so as to provide relevant system component metrics for the modeling process described below. For example, the agent  808  may be focused on capturing a production workload for a selection of system components such that they can be mapped to a destination environment on a newer, more efficient platform. 
     The agent  808  may send performance data collected from the customer IT system  802  to a gateway  804 . In some embodiments, the collected data may be sent to the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control  814  that resides within the gateway. The gateway  804  may be configured to operate on a customer system as a control point for managing how internal users and/or application assets are exposed to outside systems. The gateway  804  may provide access security, data security, auditing and monitoring capabilities, and integration with external systems. In one embodiment, the gateway  804  may provide access to a provider data center  818  and a cloud data center  806  that is remotely located away from the customer IT system  802 . The cloud data center  806  may be operated by a provider of databases, software, and other system components used by the customer IT system  802 . 
     The gateway  804  may include a type of Enterprise Manager  814  that is configured to operate in conjunction with the cloud data center  806 . A cloud tooling module  812  may operate with the enterprise manager  814  to extract and/or modify data that is already being collected by the enterprise manager  814  during normal operations. The data collected and/or modified by the cloud tooling module  812  may be selected as being relevant to modeling system operations. These data may then be provided to the cloud data center  806  for processing. In some embodiments, the gateway  804  may operate in a manner that is transparent to the customer. Data for use in system/system component modeling may be collected in the background during normal operations and stored at the provider data center  818 . 
       FIG. 9  illustrates a block diagram of a data storage architecture for modeling the migration of systems and/or system components, in accordance with certain embodiments. As described above, the gateway  904  may operate in an Enterprise Manager to record data that are relevant to migration and modeling during normal operations. The gateway  904  may include a data store  914  that is configured to store information associated with the performance of a set of legacy systems  902 . The legacy systems  902  may include a large number of system components such as any one or combination of server(s), OS(s), mid-tier component(s), application(s), database(es), and/or the like. An agent installed on the legacy systems  902  may provide information to the gateway  904  that is stored in the data store  914 . In some embodiments, the data store  914  may be populated continuously with data during normal operations of the legacy systems  902 . 
     A consolidation engine  920  may read information from various tables in the data store  914 , such as management tables, garbage collection tables, read/write logs, and/or the like. Note that this allows the consolidation engine  922  have historical performance data always on hand. Therefore, when a customer creates a migration scenario, the migration scenario can be modeled using historical data rather than needing to collect future data in order to complete the analysis. For example, data retrieved from the “MGMT$” tables can be crunched via the consolidation engine  920 , and the results may be stored in  922  ready to be shipped back to the provider data center  918 . 
     The consolidation engine  920  may extract the data from existing tables and fit the data into a new data model. In some embodiments, as the Enterprise Manager populates tables in the data store  914 , the consolidation engine  920  may detect the changes and automatically use the data to populate the new data model. In some embodiments, the consolidation engine  920  may instead wait until a migration scenario is provided by a user before translating data from the old format into the new data model. The new data model may include data from many different databases within the data store  914 . 
       FIG. 10  illustrates a flowchart  1000  of a method of modeling prospective system migration between systems, in accordance with certain embodiments. As indicated by block  1002 , the method may include collecting performance data associated with a first system. The first system may be comprised of a plurality of individual system components. The first system may be operated by a customer of a provider of one or more of the system components. The first system may be referred to as a legacy system and may comprise multiple individual system components such as any one or combination of server(s), OS(s), mid-tier component(s), application(s), database(es), and/or the like. 
     The performance data may be collected by a system agent installed on the first system. Performance data may be on a per-system basis and/or a per-component basis, such as a per-application basis. Performance data may include CPU usage (which may include peak usage over a particular harvest period) and memory usage (which may likewise include peak usage). Performance data may include different departments that use a system component, a version of a system component, information types stored within the system component, number of reads/writes on a system component, size of the system component, an encryption method used, a compression method used, security requirements, user groups, a status designating the criticality of a system component, acceptable downtimes, and/or other similar types of information. In some embodiments, the term performance data may also include data related to system component behavior and/or configurations. The agent may be configured to collect performance data that is relevant to system migration. 
     The performance data may be collected during the normal course of operations of the first system. In some embodiments, the collected performance data may be used to automatically populate analysis fields. The performance data may be collected by an Enterprise Manager and stored locally in a data store belonging to the customer. In some embodiments, the performance data may be collected from existing tables that are utilized by the Enterprise Manager. In some embodiments, these existing tables may utilize a first schema or data format that is compatible with a relational database manager of the first system. In some embodiments, the performance data may be transformed into a second schema or format that is used to model database migration scenarios. 
     The performance data collection may be carried out by a gateway that operates transparently on the customer system. The gateway may be communicatively coupled through the Internet to a cloud-based service that is remotely located geographically away from the first system. In some embodiments, the gateway may periodically transmit the performance data to the cloud-based service for performance analysis and diagnostic purposes. 
     Performance data may be collected over a time interval, then discarded as it becomes stale. For example, performance data may be collected for a time interval of approximately 1 weeks, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 30 days, 80 days, 100 days, and/or the like. As the performance data becomes stale, it may be marked for deletion or garbage collection and/or replaced by new performance data that is more recent. 
     As indicated by block  1004 , the method may also include receiving a selection of a set of system components to migrate to a second system. The second system may selected by the customer as a target for migration. For example, the first system, or legacy system may be nearing the end of its useful life. The customer may wish to migrate data stored in the first system into a new system that is more state-of-the-art. Some embodiments may allow a customer to design the second system from available components. For example, a customer may be presented with an interface that allows them to select hardware and/or software (such as an Exedata machine commercially available from Oracle®) and configured the selected hardware and/or software as desired for the second system. This may allow users to model various migration scenarios using different hardware and/or software platforms before purchasing or making other agreements associated with the second system. 
     In some embodiments, the portal described herein may be used to select or design a configuration for the second system. An operator of the cloud-based service and/or the portal may provide options for the second system through the portal. This may allow an entity to leverage the service of modeling prospective migrations in order to sell hardware and software configurations for the second system as the target of the migration. 
     The selection of the set of system components may be from a plurality of systems/components within the first system. In some cases, the set of system components may be a proper subset of the plurality of the system components in the first system, i.e., only some of the plurality of system components in the first system may be selected for migration. Similar to the process described above for selecting the second system, a portal may provide an interface through which a customer may select the set of system components from their existing legacy systems. For example, the portal may display current system components available for selection and allow a user to select one or more system components for migration. 
     In some embodiments, the migration scenario may involve migrating multiple system components to a single system component within the second system. For example, two or three legacy application systems may be migrated to a single target application system. The target application system may be equipped with more processing power, more storage space, and/or more advanced management software and algorithms that enable it to facilitate the data and operations of multiple legacy applications. 
     As indicated by block  1006 , the method may further include computing combined performance data that estimates how the set of system components will perform on the second system. The combined performance data may be computed by the gateway on the customer&#39;s computing system. In other embodiments, the combined performance data may be computed remotely at a cloud-based service. For instance, after selecting the set of system components and the second system configuration in the portal, the portal may receive information from the customer&#39;s gateway needed to compute the combined performance data. 
     In some cases, the combined performance data may simply combine the performance data from each of the set of system components into an aggregate total. For example, combined performance data representing memory usage may comprise an aggregated total of the memory usage of each of the set of system components selected for migration. In another example, combined performance data representing usage (reads/writes) may also be an aggregate total of the usage from each of the set of system components selected for migration. 
     In other cases, the combined performance data may instead take advantage of synergies, redundancies, and/or other advantages that may be realized by combining data stored in the set of system components selected for migration. For example, the combination may eliminate redundant data and thereby reduce the total memory usage of the combined performance data. In another example, the combination may provide a greater yield for compression algorithms, thereby also reducing the combined memory usage. 
     It will be understood that the combined performance data may comprise information types other than raw metrics. For example, the combined performance data may include a designation that resolves the individual designations assigned to each of the set of system components selected for migration. For example, each of the set of system components may have a security designation associated with a set of security procedures and/or requirements. The combined performance data may comprise a security designation derived from the individual security designations from the source applications. Combining a high-security application with a low security application may result in a combined performance designation corresponding to high security. 
     In another example, the combined performance data may include a maximum amount of time during which the one or more system components may be unavailable. This may be referred to as a recovery time objective. Each of the set of system components selected for migration may include a distinct recovery time objective set, for example, by contractual obligation. The combined performance data may utilize the minimum, maximum, average, and/or any other arithmetic combination of individual recovery time objectives from the source system components to formulate a combined recovery time objective. 
     In another example, the combined performance data may include a maintenance window designation. Each of the set of system components selected for migration may be assigned an individual maintenance window during which the component can be off-line for migration. If multiple system components have similar maintenance windows, then the combined performance data may include a designation that indicates no maintenance window would exist, indicating to the customer that migrating the set of system components to the second system may require additional maintenance window scheduling. 
     In some embodiments, the performance data for one of the legacy system components may not be compatible with the performance data of another legacy system components. For example, hardware for a first application may use a processor that is incompatible with the hardware for a second application. Therefore, simply comparing processing times (often measured in reads/writes per second) may not be ideal. These embodiments may normalize performance data over the set of system components selected by for migration in order to generate the combined performance data. For example, standardizing benchmarks such as SPECint may be used to provide a normalized measure of computing power in the source system components as they would be combined in the target second system. 
     As indicated by block  1008 , the method may additionally include providing one or more indications as to whether the set of system components should be migrated to the second system. The one or more indications may be presented in a fashion indicating that the system components can or cannot be merged. The one or more indications may communicate whether the set of system components should cohabitate on a single machine or set of resources, such as an engineered system. The one or more indications may also be presented in a graphical format that assigns a percentage or intermediate designation indicating that the system components can be merged, but that additional issues need to be considered. For example, one embodiment may use a green/yellow/red indication system where yellow indicates that some of the combined performance data reveals areas of possible concern for the customer. 
     In some embodiments, the one or more indications may be presented as a list through the portal described above that presents different categories of the combined performance data and a migration score assigned to each. Generally, the one or more indications may be divided into a group of quantitative components and a group of qualitative components. The group of quantitative components can describe whether the computing hardware of the second system can operate a combination of the set of system components selected for migration. These indications may be measured against a set of technical specifications or hardware capabilities of the second system. For example, one indication may provide the total memory usage of the combined set of system components as well as the available memory of a target system component along with an indicator as to whether or not the combined applications will fit on the target system. In another example, the processor usage of the combined system components may be compared to the available processing power of the target system component along with an indicator as to whether or not the target system component can handle the workload of the combined system components. 
     The group of qualitative components may indicate non-hardware/technical considerations in migrating the system component. For example, merging system component with different security requirements can be technically achieved by assigning the combined system components the highest security level from the source system components; however, enhancing the security of some data may not be desirable for business reasons. There also may be business reasons for keeping data separate and segregating employee lists that have access to each physical system component. Other qualitative components may include indications regarding maintenance windows, availability, data integrity and backup storage requirements, physical location requirements, compatibility with other legacy systems, and/or the like. 
     In some embodiments, the one or more indications may also include options that may be available to enable the migration or to minimize risks involved. For example, one of the indications may include a recommendation that the source system components perform a search for redundant data to be removed, and that by doing so the combined system components may physically fit on the target system component. 
     It should be appreciated that the specific steps illustrated in  FIG. 10  provide particular methods of modeling a migration scenario according to various embodiments of the present invention. Other sequences of steps may also be performed according to alternative embodiments. For example, alternative embodiments of the present invention may perform the steps outlined above in a different order. Moreover, the individual steps illustrated in  FIG. 10  may include multiple sub-steps that may be performed in various sequences as appropriate to the individual step. Furthermore, additional steps may be added or removed depending on the particular applications. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize many variations, modifications, and alternatives. 
     The examples described above are not meant to be an exhaustive list of the types of quantitative and qualitative indications that may be of interest in modeling the prospective migration of system components. What follows is a description of several interfaces that may be provided by the portal. These interfaces may be used to walk a customer through a systems migration modeling process and provide the indications described above such that the customer can make a decision as to whether or not the migration should proceed. Again, these interfaces are merely exemplary and not meant to be limiting. 
       FIG. 11  illustrates an interface  1100  for selecting source and target systems/system components, according to some embodiments. The interface  1100  may be provided as a portal in a cloud support service as described above. Therefore, many services may be offered through the portal in addition to system modeling migration scenarios. Various services may be offered through a menu of interface  1100 , and “Consolidation Planning Service” may be selected from among the available services. This selection may instruct the portal to retrieve performance data stored locally on the customer system by the gateway and to calculate combined performance data to be displayed through the portal for the customer to analyze. 
     Interface  1100  may include a progress bar  1102  that allows the user to see their progress made in relation to the entire modeling process. An initial step in the modeling process may be to select source and destination systems. A source selection control  1104  may be used to add and remove sources from the set of systems/system components selected for migration. Clicking the “Add Source” button may allow the customer to select existing systems that are registered through the portal. Similarly, a destination selection control  1106  may allow customer to add or remove destination hardware and/or software for the modeling process. For example, a user may select an engineered hardware system operated remotely via a cloud service. One or more legacy databases may be added as sources for data migration to a cloud-based storage service. 
     After selecting source and destination databases, the portal may next allow a customer to view and analyze the performance data that is associated with the source databases.  FIG. 12  illustrates an interface  1200  for analyzing the memory usage of a set of systems/system components selected for migration, according to some embodiments. Interface  1200  includes a graph  1202  that shows the relative memory usage over the last 30 days of various selected system components. For example, the memory usage could be indicated on a per-server basis. If servers have virtual machines or zones running on them, the memory usage could be indicated on a per-virtual-machine basis or a per-zone basis. This type of interface may allow a user to determine which databases should be added and removed from the selection. For example, interface  1200  may reveal that one very large system component is included in the selection. The customer may remove the large system component in order to fit more smaller system components in the target system. 
     Memory usage is but one example of the performance data that may be viewed for the set of systems/system components selected for migration. A menu  1204  may allow the customer to select other types of performance data for the source systems/system components. For example, environmental details, storage information, systems/system components features, and/or other performance data may also be provided through interface  1100 . The customer may select the tab associated with a desired set of performance data in order to view it through the portal. 
     In some embodiments, an interface for analyzing the I/O operations of the set of systems/system components selected for migration may be provided As with memory usage, such an interface may be available through one of the tabs at the top of interface. A graph may display the average number of physical reads and/or writes over a particular time interval, such as the past 30 days. Other types of graphs may show maximum values, minimum values, and/or other arithmetic measures of systems/system components reads and/or writes. 
     In some embodiments, an interface for analyzing the number of patches applied to the set of systems/system components selected for migration, according to some embodiments. Such an may include a graph that illustrates the relative number of critical patches applied to each of the systems/system components in the set. This information may help customers group systems/system components with similar patch counts together for migration to the same target systems/system components. Patch numbers may be correlated with an amount of maintenance required by each system/system component, and it may be advantageous to group systems that require similar amounts of maintenance. 
     Such interfaces as in the foregoing examples may all be used by the customer to analyze the performance data associated with each of the set of systems/system components selected for migration. The set of systems/system components selected for migration, as well as the target/second system/system component, may be collectively referred to as a migration scenario or a migration configuration. After viewing the performance data for the source systems/system components, the cloud-based portal may next provide interfaces for analyzing the combined performance data for a particular migration scenario to the target systems/system components. 
       FIG. 13  illustrates an interface  1300  for configuration analysis, according to some embodiments. Interface  1300  allows a user to determine if a system is configured in such a way that it would cause an issue for migration to the second system/system component. Various graphs, charts, tables, and other graphical elements may display critical issues, the severity of the issues, the number of issues, scores, compliance with business rules and other technical requirements, and/or the like. Interface  1300  may provide an overview for the customer to quickly analyze a migration scenario. From interface  1300 , a customer may delve into the specific details of the combined performance data. 
       FIG. 14  illustrates an interface  1400  for analyzing memory usage on a target system, according to some embodiments. The graph of interface  1400  illustrates the combined memory usage  1406  for two source servers after migration to the target server. Multiple thresholds may be used for evaluation. Threshold  1402  may be considered a hard threshold that memory usage is not allowed to exceed (100% in this case). Threshold  1404  may be considered a soft threshold indicating a desired maximum level of memory usage. 
     In the example illustrated by interface  1400 , the combined memory usage  1406  does not exceed either threshold  1402  or threshold  1404 . In some embodiments, if peak values of memory usage exceed threshold  1404 , then a warning (e.g. yellow) may be presented in the one or more indications of whether the servers should be combined. Similarly, if the average value of memory usage exceeds a threshold  1404 , then a critical error (e.g. red) may be presented in the one or more indications. In some embodiments, when the warning is indicated by a yellow color and a critical error is indicated by a red color, then no error may be indicated by a green color. 
       FIG. 15  illustrates an interface  1500  for analyzing CPU usage on a target system, according to some embodiments. Interface  1500  may be very similar to interface  1400 . Both hard and soft thresholds may be used, and neither the peak value nor the average value of the CPU usage of the combined systems on the target system exceed the soft threshold. Warnings may be given for the values that exceed the soft threshold, and critical errors may be triggered for average values that exceed the soft threshold. 
       FIG. 16  illustrates an interface  1600  for recommending whether a migration scenario should be carried out, according to some embodiments. The customer may be informed that the modeling exercise is completed. The customer may also be given a pass/fail/warning status of the modeling exercise. In this embodiment, each assessment category (disk projections, memory projections, CPU projections, disk usage, application features, etc.) has passed and is labeled with a green color. Therefore, the overall status of the modeling exercise is “PASS.” Interface  1600  allows user to quickly make a determination about a migration scenario without needing to delve into the specifics of each assessment category. 
       FIG. 17  illustrates an interface  1700  for providing recommendations for a migration scenario, according to some embodiments. Recommendations may be provided such that the performance of the target system will be improved. In cases where the migration scenario provided indications of critical errors or warnings, recommendations may be provided in order to mitigate the critical errors and/or warnings. In the example of interface  1700 , a recommendation may inform the customer that data compression may improve the performance of one or more target systems. 
     In the foregoing description, interfaces were described covering certain aspects of a Consolidation Planning Service (Systems). It should be noted that other aspects of the Consolidation Planning Service may be provided in other interfaces that have not been described explicitly. For example, an interface may describe security reports related to a set of systems/system components selected for migration. Another interface might describe the availability of the set of systems/system components. Another interface might describe data integrity aspects of the set of systems/system components. Therefore, the interfaces presented herein are merely exemplary, and not meant to be limiting. 
     In the foregoing description, for the purposes of illustration, methods were described in a particular order. It should be appreciated that in alternate embodiments, the methods may be performed in a different order than that described. It should also be appreciated that the methods described above may be performed by hardware components or may be embodied in sequences of machine-executable instructions, which may be used to cause a machine, such as a general-purpose or special-purpose processor or logic circuits programmed with the instructions to perform the methods. These machine-executable instructions may be stored on one or more machine readable mediums, such as CD-ROMs or other type of optical disks, floppy diskettes, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, or other types of machine-readable mediums suitable for storing electronic instructions. Alternatively, the methods may be performed by a combination of hardware and software.