Remote Data Collection: PlateSpin Recon does not require the installation of agent software, eliminating the need to physically touch data center servers. All performance and inventory data is collected via standard OS instrumentation capabilities.

Rich Data Modeling: Helps you make consolidation choices based on sophisticated analysis of resources, workloads, and utilization trends. Tight integration with VMware^* VirtualCenter provides greater visibility into virtual infrastructures, thereby improving data center management and operations.

Custom Report Creation and Delivery: Helps you define resource and workload parameters and generate custom visual reports for data center assessments and server consolidations. You can quickly identify consolidation candidates based on resource utilization trends, and compare workload characteristics before and after consolidation. Scheduled report delivery via e-mail or FTP ensures easy access to remote data and provides up-to-date information.

Flexible Data Capture and Export: You can export PlateSpin Recon data to a number of formats, including HTML, PDF, Word, CSV, Excel, or images. Raw data can be extracted directly from the database and delivered to business intelligence applications for advanced statistical analysis.

Enterprise-Level Scalability: Each instance of PlateSpin Recon can monitor up to 1,500 servers to ensure enterprise scalability for the world’s largest data centers. Data can be aggregated from multiple PlateSpin Recon data collectors for centralized data warehousing, analysis, and planning, or to accommodate larger enterprise implementations.

Multiple-Data Center Support: You can use PlateSpin Recon in different geographical locations to remotely collect data and provide scheduled updates to a master PlateSpin Recon installation. This allows for centralized analysis and planning for initiatives such as server or data center consolidation.

Flexible Chargeback Reporting: Because virtualization creates a shared pool of computing resources, it can be difficult to manage and monitor virtual resource usage. PlateSpin Recon enables organizations to effectively allocate and share virtual resources across business units and departmental owners. Flexible chargeback reporting capabilities improve virtual infrastructure management and financial accounting by allowing organizations to accurately calculate IT costs based on actual resource usage.

VM Growth Reporting: You can generate reports to monitor the proliferation of virtual machines and avoid the administrative headaches associated with virtual infrastructure sprawl.

Planning: You can automatically generate server consolidation and disaster recovery plans based on detailed workload analysis to ensure the optimal fit between server workloads and virtual resources. Use forecasted data to plan for and accommodate future growth.

Workload Analysis: The PlateSpin Recon Planning Module automatically analyzes five critical workload dimensions—processor, memory, disk space, disk I/O, and network I/O—simultaneously across thousands of servers, providing consolidation plans that maximize utilization while minimizing resource contention.

Scenario Modeling: You can use custom scenarios with user-defined target server specifications, including server templates or existing virtual machine servers to create an optimal consolidation plan.

Power and Cooling Analysis: You can compare and contrast potential power and cooling cost savings and ROI derived from different consolidation scenarios. Custom fields (maintained in a central database) let you input power and cooling requirements for major hardware platforms. This feature lets organizations analyze and cost-justify green computing initiatives.

Time-Based Analysis: You can stagger multiple workloads evenly across virtual hosts and account for hourly peaks and valleys inherent in server utilization trends.

Workload and Utilization Forecasting: You can predict future workloads and resource utilization based on historical trends to better plan for server consolidation and infrastructure growth, as well as enable more proactive systems management. Forecasting data on CPU, disk, memory, and usage trends is presented in easy-to-read charts, reports, and plans.