What’s New

Version 8.12.0

Application Performance Management

• Two-way Integration with IBM Instana Observability (Instana)

  With this release, you can maximize the benefits of Turbonomic and Instana Observability (Instana) by setting up a two-way integration. This two-way integration allows you to view the executed and recommended performance actions from Turbonomic in the Instana UI. These actions are aimed at improving the performance of the entities that are monitored by Instana.

  For more information, see Enabling the Instana-Turbonomic Two-Way Integration.

• New Relic Enhancements

  • This release introduces the ability to add a target name in the New Relic target page. You can now identify a New Relic target based on a target name instead of the Account ID in the target configuration page. Since this name is for display purposes only, you can customize the target name based on your needs and the name does not need to match any name in New Relic. Give each target a unique name when multiple New Relic targets are added to Turbonomic.

    Note:

    The target name field can only contain alphanumeric, space, or hyphen characters.

  • When adding a New Relic target, you can now add the User Key that is provided by the New Relic platform to the new "User Key" field. Alternatively, select the "Use REST API Key and GraphQL API Key" toggle button to specify the REST API Key and GraphQL API Key.

    It is recommended to use the User Key field instead of the REST API Key and GraphQL API Key fields.

  • When adding or editing a New Relic target, the "Target Name" field now appears at the top of the target configuration page.

  • The New Relic logo was updated throughout the Turbonomic UI.

  For more information, see New Relic.

• Verification of Server Certificates for AppDynamics, Instana, and Dynatrace Targets

  AppDynamics, Instana, and Dynatrace targets now include a "Verify Server Certificate" option, which ensures the target you are adding has a valid certificate and proxy, if applicable.

  For existing targets, the value is set to false by default. Review your targets to determine whether you want to enable this feature.

• Application Component Actions and Policy Settings Enhancements

  With this release, Application Component entities and their related commodities (such as Heap and Garbage Collection) use percentile calculations to generate actions. Additionally, the Application Component policy settings now include Aggressiveness and Observation Periods as scaling constraints.

  For more information, see Action Details and Application Component Policies.

• Application Topology Page Enhancements

  The Settings > Application Topology page now utilizes the new design framework by default. For more information, see Design Framework for the User Interface.

  Additionally, the following enhancements were implemented as part of the Application Topology creation flow. These are available only to users who are using the new design framework and have the feature flag enabled in the backend.

  • A new Create Entity button is available on the Scope, Search, and Group view pages.

  • Quick Help is now available on the Application Topology page to facilitate the creation process of an Application Topology.

• Removal of Application Insights Target

  With this release, the Application Insights target has been removed from Turbonomic. After upgrading to version 8.11.1, delete any existing Application Insights targets from the Target Configuration page by selecting the target in the list and then clicking Delete.

  For Kubernetes deployments, it is recommended that you delete the mediation-appinsights component from the Turbonomic Custom Resource (CR) file.

  For more information, see (Optional) Enabling and Disabling Probe Components.

Container Resource Management

• Improved Management of Container Platform Targets

  To align with industry terminology, the category name for container platform targets has changed from 'Cloud Native' to 'Container Platform'.

  Turbonomic supports Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift, and connects to these container platforms through the Kubeturbo agent. This agent must be deployed to each Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift cluster that Turbonomic will manage. To help you deploy and manage Kubeturbo with ease, this release introduces the following improvements.

  • In the user interface, when you click Settings > Target Configuration > New Target > Container Platform, you will now see Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift as separate targets.

  • When you select a particular target, you will now see a guide that walks you through the Kubeturbo deployment process for that target, including the settings that you need to configure directly in your cluster. You do not need to configure any settings in the user interface.

  • After the deployment, Kubeturbo automatically adds itself as a Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift target in the user interface, in Settings > Target Configuration. When you view the details for a target, you will now see read-only information about your Kubeturbo deployment. To make changes, update the Kubeturbo configuration in your cluster.

    The Kubeturbo deployment guides are also available in the Turbonomic documentation. For more information, see the topics outlined in Container Platform Targets.

    Note:

    The Kubeturbo deployment guides in GitHub are no longer maintained and will be retired. Always refer to the Turbonomic documentation for the latest information.

• Granular Resize Actions for Workload Controllers

  You can now control the Workload Controller resize actions that Turbonomic generates and automates based on the specific resources that you want to resize and the resize direction. For example, for CPU limit resizes, you may want to automate resize down actions but require reviews of resize up actions. To enforce these rules, create a Workload Controller policy and then set the action mode for Resize CPU Limit Down to automated, and Resize CPU Limit Up to manual.

  For more information, see Workload Controller Policies.

• Container Spec Policy Enhancements

  This release introduces the ability to configure container spec policies that specify tolerance levels for vCPU limits and requests, vMem limits and requests, and CPU throttling. With this feature, Turbonomic analysis can now generate more accurate resize actions that respect the tolerance levels that you configured.

  To help you configure tolerance levels with ease, the enhanced policy page for container specs now includes individual tabs for vCPU limits and requests, vMem limits and requests, and CPU throttling.

  For more information, see Container Spec Policies.

• Action Execution Improvement for Red Hat OpenShift MachineSets

  Before executing a node provision or suspension action for a MachineSet in a Red Hat OpenShift cluster, Kubeturbo now checks the node count range specified in your ConfigMap. If the pre-execution check determines that the node count will fall outside the range after action execution, the action executes but fails, and the failure is logged (for example, in the All Actions chart in the Turbonomic user interface). This mechanism ensures the overall stability and performance of the OpenShift cluster.

  By default, the minimum node count is 1 and the maximum is 1000. You can customize these values by updating the nodePoolSize parameter in your Kubeturbo ConfigMap. This update does not require a restart of the Kubeturbo pod and takes effect after approximately one minute.

  For a sample ConfigMap with the nodePoolSize parameter, see the Kubeturbo GitHub repository.

• New Container Reports for SaaS Reporting Customers

  All SaaS Reporting customers with Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift targets added to their Turbonomic instance will now have three new Container reports automatically added and available for use:

  • Container Cluster and Namespace Capacity and Utilization

  • Container Cluster Workload Latest Pending Resize Actions

  • Container Cluster Workload Executed Resize Actions

• Top Namespaces Download for all Namespaces

  When downloading the list of Namespaces from the Top Namespaces widget, the download option will now download all Namespaces, not just the Top 50.

Cloud Resource Management

• Support for AWS GPU Metrics

  Turbonomic now discovers NVIDIA GPU metrics for supported AWS EC2 instance types and uses these metrics to generate VM scale actions. Currently, Turbonomic supports P2, P3, P3dn, G3, G4dn, G5, and G5g instance types with Linux AMIs.

  Metrics include the number of utilized GPU cards and the amount of GPU memory in use. You can view these metrics in the Capacity and Usage and Multiple Resources charts. To optimize performance and costs, Turbonomic can recommend actions that scale down the number of GPU cards, or scale GPU memory up or down.

  To collect GPU metrics, be sure to configure CloudWatch as described in AWS Metrics Collection.

• Scaling of Standard VM Resources to AWS GPU and Accelerator Instance Types

  Turbonomic can now recommend actions to scale standard VM resources (such as vCPU and vMem) to the following AWS EC2 instance types:

  • GPU instance types

    • G3 instance family (based on NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs)

    • G5 instance family (based on NVIDIA A10G Tensor Core GPUs)

    • G5g instance family (based on NVIDIA T4G Tensor Core GPUs)

  • Accelerator instance types

    • Inf1 instance family (based on AWS Inferentia chips)

    • Inf2 instance family (based on AWS Inferentia2 chips)

  To discover these instance types, Turbonomic requires the ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes permission.

  For more information, see this Support for AWS EC2 GPU and Accelerator Instance Types.

• Historically-informed Action Generation for AWS Workloads

  For AWS workloads, Turbonomic can generate actions informed by 14 days of historical utilization data immediately after a new AWS target is added. This feature is now enabled by default for all Turbonomic customers.

  To take advantage of this feature, add at least one AWS target. The IAM role or user for this target must be configured with the pi:ListAvailableResourceMetrics permission and all the permissions listed here.

  The following components run after you add an AWS target:

  • metrics-processor

  • metrics-adapter-aws-cloudwatch

  • metrics-adapter-aws-performance-insights

  Note:

  Currently, this feature does not support workloads in AWS GovCloud accounts.

• Delete and Reconfigure Actions for Azure Cosmos Databases

  To help reduce your cloud expenses, Turbonomic can now recommend the following actions:

  • Delete an Azure Cosmos database with provisioned throughput but without any underlying document collection (container).

    This action can be executed in Turbonomic manually or automatically. To execute actions, update the service principal for Turbonomic with the following permissions.

    • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/cassandraKeyspaces/delete

    • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/gremlinDatabases/delete

    • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/mongodbDatabases/delete

    • Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/sqlDatabases/delete

    Turbonomic tracks savings associated with delete actions in the cloud savings charts.

  • Remove unused provisioned throughput that is assigned to an Azure Cosmos database. To remove this resource, reconfigure the database from Azure.

    For more information, see Reconfigure Actions for Cosmos Databases.

• Execution of Scale Actions for Google Cloud Volumes

  Scale actions for Google Cloud volumes can now be executed manually or automatically in Turbonomic. Before this release, scale actions could only be executed in Google Cloud.

  To take advantage of this feature, update the role for the Turbonomic service account with the required permissions for executing scale actions. There are 24 new permissions to add. For the full list of permissions, see Action Execution Permissions for Google Cloud.

• Enhancements to Cloud Savings and Investments Charts

  • The cloud savings and investments charts can now break down data by tag values. These are the tag values that you set up in your cloud environment to categorize resources. With this feature, you can visualize the distribution of savings or investments across tag values for a given tag key. For example, you can visualize savings by teams in your organization.

    Note:

    For AWS, tag keys are limited to cost allocation tags.

  • When you click Show All in the charts, you can now view and download a table that breaks down savings or investments by resource names.

  • The charts now track savings and investments associated with Cosmos DB scale actions (for databases and document collections) and savings associated with delete actions (for databases).

On-prem Resource Management

• Network Merge Placement Policy Enhancements

  With this release, you can create groups of networks (static or dynamic) and associate them with a network merge placement policy, thus simplifying policy management.

  For more information, see Creating Placement Policies.

• On-prem Database Server Actions and Policy Settings Enhancements

  With this release, on-prem Database server entities and their related commodities (such as DB Memory and DB Cache Hit Rate) use percentile calculations to generate actions. Additionally, the on-prem Database Server policy settings now include Aggressiveness and Observation Periods as resizing sensitivity.

  For more information, see Action Details and On-prem Database Server Policies.

• Total Reclaimable Storage Summary in the Action Center

  The total reclaimable storage of unattached files is now displayed in the Delete files summary section in the Action Center. The total reclaimable storage is the sum of the file sizes of all "Delete Unattached Files" actions in the Action Center.

• Downloaded CSV Enhancements

  • When you download pending VM reconfigure and VM resize actions, the resulting CSV file now shows the host cluster name for each VM.

  • When you download Delete file actions, the resulting CSV file now uses GB as the standard file size unit and displays the unit in the column header ("File Size (GB)"). You can now easily sort the CSV by file size.

  • When you download the Delete files or Delete volumes actions, the downloaded CSV file now displays the unattached days count for each file.

  • When you download Delete file actions, the resulting CSV can be sorted using the "Last Modified On" column. You can also sort from oldest to newest, or newest to oldest.

• Virtual Machine Policy Settings Enhancements

  When creating a VM Automation policy, the “Move Enabled GPUs” operational constraint now has a default regex of .(?:a16|t4).$ and an updated tooltip message to alert users that on-prem virtual machines with vGPU types that match the specified pattern are enabled for moves. You can leave this field blank to disable moves for all VMs in the selected scope.

  The same tooltip message displays for the "Move Enabled GPU" field in the default virtual machine policy.

• Enhanced Delete File Action Filters in the Action Center for On-prem Actions

  In on-prem environments, you can now filter Delete file actions by the number of days a file has been unattached. The "Risk" filter was changed to "Days Unattached" and you can view only those actions that are equal to or not equal to a specified number of days.

  Note that this change is only available when you enable the new design framework. To switch to the new framework, click in the navigation bar of the user interface and then turn on the toggle. For more information, see Design Framework for the User Interface.

Orchestration and General Features

• Flexera Imported Policy Enhancements

  This release introduces the ability to enable or disable the status of imported Flexera policies. Disabled policies do not affect actions.

  For more information, see Flexera.

• New Webhook Workflow Setting User Interface

  This release introduces the ability to create and manage webhook workflows using a new Workflows page in the user interface. You can create webhook workflows using a new wizard-driven experience and verify webhook request body template definitions using an existing action before using the workflow in an automation policy. Existing webhooks that were defined using the API method are visible and can be managed using the new Workflows page. You can also view webhook details, edit, or delete webhooks using the new page.

  For more information, see Creating Webhook Workflows with the Workflow Settings Wizard.

• Automation Policy Enhancements

  With this release, Automation and Orchestration settings in automation policies have been simplified and renamed to "Automation Workflows." Additionally, Action Generation and Action Acceptance settings are combined into a single Action Generation setting, with each action stage more clearly represented. You can now select multiple workflows per action stage and specify whether the workflow is critical (action will fail if the workflow fails) or non-critical (action will continue if the workflow fails).

  For more information, see Automation Workflows and Creating Automation Policies.

• Policy Settings Enhancements

  Policy setting labels no longer display the unit of measurement in a square bracket within the label name. For example, "Generate Delete Action after [Day(s)]" is now "Generate Delete Action after." The units of measurement appear to the right of the input field.

  The Storage Policy Settings dialog now includes enhanced helper text to more accurately describe the use of the "Delete file after" field. "Delete file after" is the duration of days the file is inactive before the action can be automatically executed. Enable automatic deletion of files by changing the "Automation and Orchestration" settings for "Delete Unattached Files" actions.

• Migration of User Management Page to the New Design Framework

  The Settings > User Management page in the user interface now uses the new design framework.

  This is part of an ongoing effort to transition the product to the framework, which delivers a high-performance user interface with a more modern look-and-feel.

  To switch to the new framework, click in the navigation bar of the user interface and then turn on the toggle.

API Management

• API Response Matches the UI

  The number of Storage Providers listed in the API response now matches the number displayed in the UI. Note that you will see the same storage provider multiple times if it contains multiple disks placed on it.