Sector7 Granted 2 Patents - Server Consolidation Costing and Application Migration Costing
Being Awarded a Patent was very 'cool' but, more than 'cool' it took a significant amount of work to rationalize the Migration Process into a mathematical model. Without such a model, you cannot have a scalable repeatable process. Without a model and scalable process it becomes “guess work” with no "rigor" to support the estimates.
Note: As part of the IBM acquisition of Sector7's Unix to Unix server consolidation business, IBM also acquired the patents. Sector7 was granted a license to continue to use the patents (IBM Acquires Server Consolidations Assets of Sector7)
Patent #8,869,124 A computer implemented method and program product for estimating cost and/or time requirements for migrating an application from one platform to another
#8,869,124 A computer implemented method and program product for estimating cost and/or time requirements for migrating an application from one platform to another. The method includes receiving identifications for tasks, receiving at least one assessment type selected for estimating cost and/or time requirement for migration, where the assessment type delineates a degree of accuracy for estimating the cost and/or time requirement for migration, correlating base costs and/or time requirements to the tasks identified, receiving identifications of attributes that affect base costs and/or time requirements, correlating cost and/or time factors to the tasks, a respective cost factor and/or time factor indicating an amount by which an attribute affects the respective base cost and/or time requirement for a task, and estimating cost and/or time requirements for each task, by applying the respective cost and/or time factors for each task to the respective base cost and/or base time requirements for each task.
Patent #7,616,583 A Costing Model for Application Server Consolidation
#7,616,583 A computer determines a first plurality of servers which have a lease set to expire within a predetermined period or current or projected peak utilization greater than a predetermined percentage of their capacity. The computer determines a second plurality of servers which have sufficient lease term and excess capacity. The computer determines and records which servers of the first plurality to consolidate on servers of the second plurality based on sufficient capacity, match of application(s) and projected life span of the application(s) of the second plurality, and determines a schedule for retiring the servers of the first plurality with the applications having insufficient projected lifespan, and estimates cost savings for the consolidation.
PDF (#7,616,583) HTML (#7,616,583)
#8,869,124 A computer implemented method and program product for estimating cost and/or time requirements for migrating an application from one platform to another. The method includes receiving identifications for tasks, receiving at least one assessment type selected for estimating cost and/or time requirement for migration, where the assessment type delineates a degree of accuracy for estimating the cost and/or time requirement for migration, correlating base costs and/or time requirements to the tasks identified, receiving identifications of attributes that affect base costs and/or time requirements, correlating cost and/or time factors to the tasks, a respective cost factor and/or time factor indicating an amount by which an attribute affects the respective base cost and/or time requirement for a task, and estimating cost and/or time requirements for each task, by applying the respective cost and/or time factors for each task to the respective base cost and/or base time requirements for each task.
PDF (#8,869,124) HTML (#8,869,124)
2003 - IBM Acquires Low Complexity, high Volume Server Consolidation/Migration business from Sector7
in 2003 IBM acquired the Intellectual Property from Sector7 for the UNIX to UNIX server consolidation business, making it the consolidation/migration practice part of IBM Global Services and leaving Sector7 to once again focus on the longer time frame more complex tailored VMS / OpenVMS Application Migration and Re-hosting/Re-platforming services, which has been our passion and exclusive focus for over 30+ years (Established in October 1985).
