Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. have developed a virtual machine (VM) control technology that improves server rack mounting density in a datacenter environment.

Currently, in datacenters, the number of servers mounted to a rack is limited by the total rated electrical power of the servers, which must be less than the power supply of the rack. However, often times, server load is low, at approximately 10% to 50%, and power usage for each rack proportional to load is also low compared to the rated power, leading to racks with low server mounting density.

In order to increase server mounting density, Fujitsu Laboratories has developed technology that enables efficient server placement by setting up a partition made up of backup servers in the datacenter, and migrating VMs to the backup partition based on the physical distribution and power consumption of the virtual machines.

Fujitsu's VM control algorithm first installs physical servers in racks at high density in a datacenter and then establishes a back-up partition, using the migration functionality of the VMs to move them depending on the power consumption of each server. In this way it prevents each rack from exceeding its amount of power supply.

By applying the new technology, Fujitsu Laboratories calculated that the server rack operational efficiency was increased to 90%, and space usage could be reduced by 40%.

Fujitsu Laboratories plans to incorporate this technology into Fujitsu Software ServerView Infrastructure Manager, Fujitsu Limited's infrastructure software for operations and management, within fiscal 2018.