Patent ID: 8626897

Claim:
A method for collecting and analyzing server farm information for managing a server farm, comprising: identifying a list of servers running in the server farm; collecting performance metrics from respective identified servers and storing the performance metrics in a collection database, comprising: determining that at least some performance metrics are not available for at least a part of a first server; responsive to determining that at least some performance metrics are not available, determining a hardware configuration for lab tested hardware; determining that the lab tested hardware is comparable to at least the part of the first server; and responsive to determining that the lab tested hardware is comparable, collecting performance metrics associated with the lab tested hardware and storing the performance metrics associated with the lab tested hardware in the collection database in association with the first server; and analyzing the performance metrics stored in the collection database in accordance with a server farm management request to create an expansion resource capacity plan associated with one or more available hardware upgrades for one or more existing servers within the server farm, the analyzing comprising evaluating a function curve indicative of requests to a server and hardware resource costs of the server to create the expansion resource capacity plan.