IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Virtual Environments, Version 7.2 Fix Pack 3

Detailed reference: Edit Current Environment

The Edit Current Environment window presents a spreadsheet-like view within a browser window. In this view, you can view and edit the configuration and utilization profile, in addition, define scope.

Data that is loaded in this view is a snapshot of the current environment that is loaded by using Load config, or by adding servers, as described in Scenario: Adding more servers. You can then add to the data.

Physical server inventory view

Figure 1. Current Environment Physical Servers view

The Physical Servers view presents the physical server configuration data in the current environment. To define the scope, you can select a subset of physical servers to include in the analysis session. The candidate column in the view has Source and Target tags. These tags determine how the server is used in optimization generation.

The Source tag ensures that during optimization, virtual machines from this physical server can only be moved to another physical server.
The Target tag ensures that during optimization, this physical server can only receive virtual machines from another physical server.
Source and Target tags together ensure that during optimization, virtual machines from the server can be moved for optimization and the server can also be used to place virtual machines.

The Status column indicates whether any problems exist with matching performance benchmark data for the particular server. Additionally, you can click the Status column to see benchmark search results. A green check mark Single match indicator

icon indicates that a single matching benchmark entry exists. A yellow triangle Multiple match indicator

icon indicates that multiple benchmark matches to the server architecture exist, but an approximate benchmark value is assigned to the server. An X in a red circle Critical indicator

icon indicates that no benchmark match exists.

You can verify the search result by clicking the Status column. If multiple matches or no match, you can use the information from the search results to modify the architecture column to narrow down the match to the correct benchmark.

For example, for a server with architecture Intel Xeon CPU E5506 @2.13GHz, the default result is a single match:

Figure 2. Benchmark Search Results window

You can enter the correct string from the Benchmark Search Results window to the Architecture field in the physical server inventory view to narrow the match. In this example, if the architecture is updated to IBM BladeCenter HS21 (Intel Xeon CPU E5506 2.13GHz) from the search results, a single match is displayed:

Figure 3. Benchmark Search Results window, single match

The built-in benchmark database of the Capacity Planner might not be complete with all the types and configuration variations (for example, vendor, model, architecture, number of cores, and so on) of physical servers that are available. Therefore, the Capacity Planner might not find an accurate benchmark value for the missing types and configuration variations.

In this case, you can feed in your environment-specific server data into the Capacity Planner database. This supplementary data is searched first before the built-in database by the Capacity Planner to find the benchmark values. For more information about the custom benchmark data, see the CUSTOM_USER_DEFINED_BENCHMARK.csv section in Editing knowledge base.

If the environment is homogeneous, use the raw CPU capacity option for analysis. Enable this option by updating the normalization benchmark setting as described inNormalization benchmark setting.

The following actions are available on the Actions menu:

Add Server

You can add more physical servers to this view. These servers can be used to provide additional hardware, or to try what-if scenarios. When you choose this action, a window opens with a list of available models, as shown in Figure 2. You can select the appropriate model and create multiple instances as needed.

When you click Create, a new row is added to the inventory grid with architecture details populated from the knowledge base data.

Add Custom Tag

You can extend and augment the discovered data with user-defined attributes (tags). When you select this action, you are prompted to provide the tag name and a new column is added to the inventory grid. You can then add values for this column.

These tags can be used to formulate and apply rules during optimization. For more information, see Detailed reference: Edit Recommended Environment settings.

Export Data

You can download the data in the Physical Servers inventory view to a CSV file, which can be edited offline to add missing information.

Import Data

You can import a CSV file that was downloaded using Export Data.

Important: Note the following when you edit this file:

The first column, Physical_Server_PK, must not be edited. If an extra physical server is added, you must keep the Physical_Server_PK column empty.
Only previously NULL or blank data is updated. If data exists in a specified column, the data cannot be updated if edited.

Note: The Export and Import data supports the .zip file. The .CSV file is available in the .zip file.

See CSV format for data import and export for more information about editing CSV files.

Reports

The following reports are available:

Capacity Planner Physical Server Inventory: The Capacity Planner Physical Server Inventory report presents an overall view of the physical environment in the current Capacity Planner session. The report contains a summary table of the inventory, and bar charts that are organized by hypervisor name and version, or data center and cluster, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Capacity Planner Physical Server Inventory report

Virtual machine inventory view

Figure 5. Current Environment Virtual Machines view

The Virtual Machines view presents the virtual machine configuration data from the selected set of physical servers. You can make corrections, add missing data or add new attributes (tags) that cannot be discovered in the current environment (such as middleware details, or tags such as criticality, SLA factors, and so on).

The following actions are available on the Actions menu:

Add Virtual Machine

You can add a virtual machine to provide for future workloads. A new row is added to the inventory grid where you can populate details of the new virtual machine. Virtual Machines can be added to any server in the working set, if spare capacity exists for CPU and memory reservations.

Add Custom Tag

These tags can be used to formulate and apply rules during optimization. For more information, see Detailed reference: Edit Recommended Environment settings.

Export Data

You can download the data in the Virtual Machines inventory view to a CSV file, which can be edited offline to add missing information.

Import Data

You can import a CSV file that was downloaded by using Export Data.

Important: Note the following when you edit this file:

The first column, VIRTUAL_MACHINE_PK, must not be edited. If an extra virtual machine is added, you must keep the VIRTUAL_MACHINE_PK column empty.
Only previously NULL or blank data is updated. If data exists in a specified column, it cannot be updated if edited.

Reports

Virtual Machine Inventory: The Virtual Machine Inventory report presents an overall view of the virtual environment in the current capacity planning session. The report contains a summary table of the inventory and overall organizational graphical representations that are organized by datacenter and cluster, operating system name and version, and middleware name and version. The report also contains bar charts that are organized by hypervisor name and version, or data center and cluster, as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Virtual Machine Inventory report

Virtual Machines Utilization View

Figure 7. Virtual Machines Utilization view

A capacity analyst can use this view to view and analyze the utilization profiles of the virtual machines on the servers currently in the working set. The virtual machine utilization data is federated from the Tivoli® Data Warehouse tables. The capacity analyst can define the time interval for analysis of data on the PlanningCenter (Step 2: Set analysis time period).

The following actions are available on the Actions menu:

Compute Usage: You can compute the usage requirement of virtual machines by using different parameters, as shown in Figure 8:
Figure 8. Compute Usage window
Compute Usage calculates the sizing of the virtual machine for the parameters: CPU, memory, network bandwidth, and disk I/O usage. This sizing is done by analyzing the utilization data available in Tivoli Data Warehouse based on the summarization and aggregation levels specified. Aggregation levels available are Average, Minimum, Maximum, and 90th Percentile. Summarization levels available are Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. The available values in the Selected Summarization field depend on which value was selected in the Summarization field.
Important: Usage numbers are generated only for virtual machines that have utilization data that is collected in the Tivoli Data Warehouse.
Generate Workload Stability Type: The Generate Stability Characteristic Parameters window is shown in Figure 9:
Figure 9. Generate Stability Characteristic Parameters window
Generate Workload Stability Type analyzes the hourly utilization data for a virtual machine and determines whether the resource utilization is stable or unstable, depending on the variation in usage.
Edit Usage: The Edit Usage window is shown in Figure 10:
Figure 10. Edit Usage window
You can manually edit or Adjust-for-growth the resource usage. You can apply different growth profiles to adjust as needed. The usage parameters can be specified in absolute units, for example, 1024 MHz CPU, or a growth percentage can be applied, for example, add 10% growth to memory.

Reports

The following reports are available:

Utilization Aggregated Timeseries report: This report can be used to identify utilization patterns of virtual machines. Because you can view aggregations of multiple virtual machines at a time, you can also identify correlations in the resource utilizations. You can use these observations to determine the usage sizing summarization level. An example graph is shown in Figure 11.
Figure 11. Utilization Aggregated Timeseries report
Utilization Detailed Timeseries report: This report helps you identify any data gaps in the utilization data that is collected for the virtual machines Data points come directly from aggregated measurement tables in utilization schema. An example graph is shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12. Capacity Planner Utilization Detailed Timeseries report
Current Environment report: The Capacity Planner Current Environment report shows the recommended usage and sizing for each virtual machine that is based on time series utilization data and sizing process: summarization, granularity type, and selections. The report shows the capacity gaps, if any, in the current environment before any optimization. Example output is shown in Figure 13 and Figure 14.
Figure 13. Current Environment report

Figure 14. Current Environment report (continued)

Feedback