OASIS: Smarter, Faster Tools Fuel Data Center Transformations

In the quest for Greener, more efficient data centers, we're offering clients an innovative toolset that scans and reports on the server and storage network environment. Faster and more intelligent than current assessment tools, OASIS (Optimization Assessment and Systems Integration Study) delivers recommendations on efficiency, environmental impact and cost reductions.

This toolset rapidly and non-intrusively scans an environment to generate an accurate baseline inventory in less than 24 hours. It then produces a variety of useful analyses and reports, including Site Breakdown, Platform Breakdown, Environmental (Green) and Return on Investment reports.

They give an unprecedented enterprise view of the client's current and future states faster than ever before, according to Billy Rollin, OASIS co-creator and director of CSC's Costing Center of Excellence.

"The alternative was to manually go through all of the client's data and map every server to a particular solution, using decision trees or architectures of best practices. We've taken those best practices and decision trees, converted them into rules, and now we can automate the recommendation for each server, storage device and network," he explains. "It went from a three-month process down to less than two weeks."

Rollin, along with team members Michael Paxson, David Baird and Randy Arthur, was awarded the 2009 CSC Chairman's Award for Excellence.

OASIS transforms transformations

The OASIS toolset encompasses:

• OASIS Discovery Engine (ODE), which performs discovery of the infrastructure within the environment without any impact to the systems or services they provide.
• OASIS Analysis Tool, which processes and automatically analyzes the ODE inventory data in less than 12 hours.
• Assessment cost calculator, deployment guides and report templates.

  			Related Information: Learn about CSC's infrastructure assessment solutions. Read about the 2009 Chairman's Award for Excellence. Contact us today.

The toolset has been invaluable in CSC's transformation implementation programs, and it was during one of these programs several years ago that OASIS was developed.

"We recognized the need to automate optimization assessments to feed transformation enterprise discovery," recalls Rollin. Adds Paxson, CSC solutions architect, "We kept coming across a reoccurring theme: It seemed as though decisions were made based on industry standards as opposed to an in-depth look at the customer's environment."

It is this focus on the client's unique situation that sets OASIS apart. At the core of the assessment is the analysis rules engine developed for OASIS, which incorporates both industry standards and CSC best practices to make a recommendation based on a minimal set of data.

"Industry standards alone aren't always telling of a customer's environment. It's about knowing a customer has a certain amount that can be virtualized, or a certain amount that can be decommissioned. OASIS allows us to go in and provide intelligence to the assessment," explains Paxson.

Analyzing environmental impact

For clients looking to go Green, OASIS's Environmental Analysis Report is especially valuable. It offers a comprehensive Green analysis of the current and future state data center environment, including the physical data center footprint, power and cooling requirements, carbon emissions, support volumes and infrastructure requirements.

"We show clients where we can impact their carbon footprint, emissions and data center power consumption," says Rollin. He adds that OASIS offers a better understanding of the changes a solution set will have on the existing IT environment before deploying the solution, which allows for solution prioritization and benefits analysis.

OASIS also helps clients identify and prioritize the changes or enhancements that offer the biggest financial impact. It can tell clients where they can save money through virtualization or database stacking, decommissions or migrations, for example. OASIS also helps CSC work with the client to focus on the optimal solutions, while preventing unnecessary spending on non-viable solutions.

"OASIS will identify and prioritize a number of opportunities for the client, who can then decide which are better for their business goals at that time. With OASIS, the client really sees that our intelligence is based on their unique environment," Paxson says.