Get recommendations for Workload Planning

Workload Planning helps you optimize your workload architecture and improve your financial planning accuracy across cloud vendors.

You can:

1. Model your workloads.
2. Get a resource recommendation and cost estimate for a set of service types (virtual machine, managed database, object and block storage, load balancer) based on your requirements.
3. Get estimates for one cloud vendor or compare resources between cloud vendors to pick the optimal cloud destination.

Update your Workload Planning preferences

Admins define the options that appear in Workload Planning. Visit Workload Planning Preferences for more information.

Understand custom pricing:

• For AWS, Azure, and OCI, all prices in Workload Planning are inclusive of custom pricing by default. No configuration is needed for these vendors.
• For GCP, you must enable the export of custom pricing data from your GCP billing account. Visit Setting up Custom Pricing Support for GCP for more information.

Set your default currency (non-US customers):

• Set up a default currency in Cloudability so prices display with the correct currency.
• Load an exchange rate table in Cloudability to display the correct conversion rate.

Review existing workloads

You can visualize all your workloads in the List tab. Select a workload to see the details.

• Select to modify the status of any workload.
• Select to see your other options. You can delete, duplicate, or export a workload, or save that workload as a template.

1. Enter a Name and Description for your workload.
2. Review the Allowed Service Providers. (If you don't see a service provider you're looking for, ask your admin to add it in Workload Planning Preferences.)
3. For any service provider for which you want recommendations, check the Include in Estimate checkbox.
4. From the Preferred Region dropdown menu, select the region where you want to deploy your workload. You can select up to five regions for each cloud vendor. You can also change the region later when you add resources.
5. Select your Preferred Lease Type. Your selection helps choose the correct lease type and price type when you reach the recommendation step.
   Note: The On-Demand price corresponds to the custom on-demand price, inclusive of custom pricing.
6. If appropriate, select your Commitment Type, Commitment Term, and Payment Option.
   Note: These fields only apply for committed price for AWS, Azure and GCP compute. They do not apply for OCI. If you later select On-Demand or Spot Price, these fields will no longer take effect.
7. Select the Next button to add resources.

By default, the Workload status is set to “In Progress” (You can change this status later in the List tab, after you create the workload).

Provide your resource requirements for the workload. Workload Planning uses the data you enter to look for resources that have requirements equal to or above the amount you requested.

You can either enter the resource details manually or import them.

To import your resources details:

1. To add multiple resources at once, select the Import button.
   Note: Importing resources overwrites existing resources.
2. From the dropdown menu, choose whether you want to import a JSON file or an Excel file.
3. The Import drawer opens. Use the links in the drawer to download a template with examples of resource requirements or a list of the existing resources.
   Note: In JSON files, the names of all services must be present in the file. If there is no resource or requirement need for a given service type, enter it with empty brackets. For example, for load balancer, the format is “loadbalancer”: [].
4. Select the Next button.
5. Drag your file into the upload area or use the browse for a file link to search for it.
6. Select the Next button.
7. Workload Planning displays a summary of your file. Select the Done button when you're ready to move on.

You can also add resources manually. To do that:

1. On the Add Resources workflow step, select the Add Resource button.
2. Select the Service Type and provide a Resource Name.
   Note: The “Managed Database” service type is not available for OCI.
3. If you selected Service Type Virtual Machine, Managed Database, Object Storage, or Additional Storage:
   • Enter generic requirements if you are not looking at a specific resource type, OR
   • Enable the Search resource type toggle to select the desired resource. If Workload Planning finds cheaper resources with similar requirements, it will recommend them first. For multi-cloud comparison, Workload Planning uses the requirements associated with the selected resource to generate recommendations for other cloud vendors. This option also lets you to select up to five different regions for your resource.
4. Enter all your Custom requirements.
5. Once you have entered all the requirements, select the Add button. The resource requirements display. To modify or delete them, select , then choose .
6. Select the Next button.

Once Cloudability has finished generated the recommendation, the pop-up will close and you will be taken to the Recommendation workflow step.

For cross-cloud comparison, choose from the Service drop-down to view recommendations for each service type (AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI).

You can select any type of price. On-Demand, Committed, and Spot prices are calculated as monthly price per unit. Committed price is calculated based on the data displayed in the Common Information step.

To visualize the total cost of your workload and compare costs between the cloud providers side-by-side, select Next button.

To get a different recommendation:

• Select the icon to update your requirements; OR
• Select the Back button to go to the previous step. This option lets you to modify many requirements at once.

In the Summary workflow step, Cloudability displays your recommendations in two tabs: Summary and Analysis.

Explore the Summary tab

The Summary tab displays a summary of the information associated with your workload. For cross-cloud comparisons, select the Chosen provider. Cloudability updates your Total Cost (monthly) accordingly.

While looking at the resources added to your workload, select Details to see additional information.

Explore the Analysis tab

The Analysis tab visualizes the breakdown of cost by service type and service provider in case of cross-cloud comparison.

Share your summary

Select from either the Summary or Analysis tab to export the workload summary as a CSV, duplicate the workload, or share it with others.

You can always go back to the previous steps from the Summary or Analysis tabs to make any change. Once you've finished defining your workload, select the Done button. Cloudability returns you to the List screen.