Capacity planning for i5/OS® involves using several tools to size your current workload and plan for future workloads. After you gather your workload data, you can plan for logical partitions and Capacity on Demand (CoD).
Before you start your i5/OS capacity planning, answer these questions:
| Before you begin | |
|---|---|
| __ | Which type and size of database will your company use? |
| __ | What other software applications are involved? |
| __ | How many users will use these applications? |
| __ | How much data will the server handle? |
| __ | What are the inputs and outputs for the data? |
| __ | What are your future growth plans for your company both in the short term and long term? |
| Capacity planning tasks | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| __ | Establish current workload
size You need to determine your current server usage. You can use the IBM® Performance Manager for eServer™ iSeries® with Workload Estimator, which is available at no extra charge for users that are under warranty. For more information about this tool, see the PM eServer iSeries news Web site, which explains how the performance management and workload estimating tools work. |
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| __ | Plan for Virtualization Technologies Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM) and Director Multiplatform can help you plan for capacity. EWLM allows you to define business-oriented performance goals for an entire domain of servers, and then provides an end-to-end view of actual performance relative to those goals. See Enterprise Workload Manager for more information about using EWLM to plan for capacity. Director Multiplatform contains the Capacity Manager plug-in, available in the Server Plus Pack, that you can use to plan resource management and monitor managed-system hardware performance. It can identify bottlenecks and potential bottlenecks, recommend ways to increase capacity through performance analysis reports, and forecast performance and capacity trends. See Director Multiplatform for more information about using Capacity Manager to plan for capacity. |
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| __ | Estimate future workloads Estimating future server usage is important in planning for future capacity. To estimate future workloads, start by charting capacity and workload usage over the past year and then extrapolate the growth curve for the coming year. This gives you a short-term estimate of your capacity needs for next year. For long-term estimates, you can use capacity data from the past five years to develop a capacity curve for the next five years. Make sure that you add new initiatives that will affect server usage. For more information about estimating future workloads and performance needs, see the IBM Performance Management for eServer iSeries Web site. |
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| __ | Plan for logical partitions You might need to shift logical partition (LPAR) resources as your business needs dictate. Your capacity plan is affected by how your partition resources are allocated. For more information about LPAR planning on your i5/OS servers, see Planning for logical partitions. |
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| __ | Plan for CoD Planning for CoD helps you prepare for business growth without paying for the excess capacity until you need it. See Planning for Capacity on Demand for more information about developing that plan. |
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When you have completed these tasks, you should have a plan for capacity that identifies these elements:
| After you finish | |
|---|---|
| __ | Record your current configuration with all of your standby capacity listed. |
| __ | Record a list of hardware that you will need to upgrade dynamically. |
| __ | Record a timetable for monthly or seasonal upgrades. |
| __ | Record a timetable for long-term upgrades. |