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HP Insight Capacity Advisor:a look under the hoodA technical white paper

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Table of contentsExecutive summary ..................................................................................................................................3

Product overview .....................................................................................................................................3

Capacity planning challenges....................................................................................................................4

Taking capacity planning to a new level .....................................................................................................5

Gain deep insight and advanced virtualisation for better decisions. .............................................................5

Quickly analyse scenarios for optimal configurations. .................................................................................5

Leverage real-time placement information for ongoing rebalancing. .............................................................6

Enable energy-aware planning for a greener data centre. ...........................................................................6How it works...........................................................................................................................................7

Meta structure........................................................................................................................................7

Central Management Server (CMS) ........................................................................................................7

Managed nodes ..................................................................................................................................7

Data collection ......................................................................................................................................7

Data gathering via software agents (‘utilisation providers’) ........................................................................7

Agentless data gathering ......................................................................................................................8

Support for data gathering from non-HP hardware ...................................................................................8

Data gathering standards .....................................................................................................................8

Use cases..............................................................................................................................................8

Consolidating servers ...........................................................................................................................9

Rebalancing workloads ........................................................................................................................9 Adding new workloads.........................................................................................................................9

Special use cases for the HP Integrity server environment ..........................................................................10

HP Serviceguard planning ..................................................................................................................10

HP Instant Capacity planning ..............................................................................................................10

Using the tools: basic steps ...................................................................................................................10

Step 1: Install the software on the Central Management Server. ............................................................... 11

Step 2: Set up data collection for managed nodes. ................................................................................ 11

Step 3: Create scenarios for selected systems. ....................................................................................... 11

Step 4: Set utilisation limits. ................................................................................................................. 11

Step 5: Run HP Smart Solver scenarios. ................................................................................................ 12

Step 6: Create utilisation forecasts. ...................................................................................................... 12Step 7: Generate reports. ................................................................................................................... 13

Key features .......................................................................................................................................... 13

HP Smart Solver ................................................................................................................................... 13

Five-star rating system ........................................................................................................................... 13

Forecasting and trending ......................................................................................................................14

Utilisation limits ....................................................................................................................................14

Power planning ....................................................................................................................................14

Load-balancing ....................................................................................................................................14

Reporting ............................................................................................................................................14

Integration with other HP tools ............................................................................................................... 15

HP Systems Insight Manager ...............................................................................................................15

Logical server management ................................................................................................................. 15

HP Virtualization Manager .................................................................................................................. 15

HP Server Migration Pack ...................................................................................................................15

Putting HP Capacity Advisor to work for ongoing optimisation .................................................................... 15

HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem with ProLiant servers .............................................................................. 15

HP Integrity servers and Integrity blades .................................................................................................15

Licensing .............................................................................................................................................15

Putting HP Capacity Advisor to work for one-time consolidation efforts ........................................................16

HP Insight Capacity Advisor Consolidation software ................................................................................16

Achieve better business outcomes. ...........................................................................................................16

For more information .............................................................................................................................16

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Executive summaryIn their efforts to make better use of resources whileenhancing application performance, data centremanagers and system administrators are often heldback by inadequate capacity planning tools. HPCapacity Advisor software helps your organisationovercome these challenges. It provides the detailedinformation your administrators need to increaseserver utilisation, reduce power consumption, improveapplication performance, and meet other business-driven objectives. This powerful tool helps you createan adaptive infrastructure that can increase businessflexibility, reduce operational costs, and deliver higherquality of service.

HP Capacity Advisor is a member of the HP Insightsoftware portfolio and is delivered as part of theHP Insight Dynamics – VSE suite for ProLiant servers.HP Insight Dynamics – VSE provides a powerful toolkitfor planning capacity and power continuously,provisioning infrastructure consistently, and balancingphysical and virtual resources. HP Capacity Advisorenables the continuous analysis and optimisation thatis a core benefit of HP Insight Dynamics – VSE. Inaddition to its availability in the HP Insight Dynamics

– VSE suite, HP Capacity Advisor is part of the HP Virtual Server Environment for HP Integrity servers. A limited-time use licence of HP Capacity Advisoris also available for planning consolidations fromlegacy environments.

In this paper, we provide a detailed look at howyou can put HP Capacity Advisor to work in your

environment. The discussion encompasses an overviewof the software’s key capabilities and a look at howit is deployed and used on a day-to-day basis. Inaddition, the paper summarises the software’s mostimportant features and offers other informationrelevant to organisations that are consideringdeploying HP Capacity Advisor to consolidate anenvironment, balance resources on an ongoing basis,and take capacity planning to a new level.

Product overviewHP Capacity Advisor is a real-time capacity planningtool that provides you with both real-time and historicalsystem utilisation and power 1 data for HP ProLiant, HPBladeSystem, and HP Integrity servers. The softwarehas the ability to collect and analyse more than athousand data points per server per day from bothvirtual and physical resources. It gathers data as oftenas every five minutes to create a clear record of serverresource utilisation – including processors, memory,disk input/output (I/O), network I/O, and energy.

This data can be used to easily detect systems that

are over- or under-utilised. Drawing on this data, HPCapacity Advisor arms you with the insights youneed to proactively rebalance and consolidateserver workloads to increase utilisation, reducepower consumption, improve applicationperformance, and meet other objectives.

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To aid in the capacity planning process, HP Capacity Advisor includes unique Smart Solver technology,

developed by HP Labs. Smart Solver analyseshistorical HP Capacity Advisor data and providesrecommendations on the best fit for various serverworkloads. Recommendations are displayed alongwith a simple five-star rating system, so you caneasily see which physical servers or virtual machinesare better matches for particular workloads. Inaddition, HP Capacity Advisor makes it quickand easy to simulate different configuration orconsolidation scenarios and ask what-if questionsbased on real data.

HP Capacity Advisor also includes capabilities thatallow you to model utilisation limits in order to defineservice level objectives on system resources, includingCPU, memory, disk, and network bandwidth. Theselimits can be applied to all workloads or customisedfor individual workloads. HP Smart Solver takeslimits into account when recommending targets forapplication workloads and showing availableheadroom on different servers under differentscenarios. This technology is especially useful forwhat-if analysis and consolidation of multipleworkloads onto fewer physical servers.

In addition, HP Capacity Advisor includes innovativepower capping estimator capabilities. For systems withpower capping enabled, HP Capacity Advisor canestimate the time that a single-system power cap willbe activated, and it can provide data that helps youset appropriate power caps.

Capacity planningchallengesIf you help keep an enterprise data centre up andrunning, you have undoubtedly wrestled with capacityplanning questions. How should we go aboutconsolidating legacy systems? How can we re-balanceworkloads to improve application performance andtake greater advantage of our available processingpower? Where should we stack individual workloadswithin our existing environment? Can we fit newworkloads onto our existing servers, or do we need

new servers?Elsewhere within the enterprise, executive managersmay be asking a complementary set of questions. Howcan we gain more value from our server investments? What can we do to control rising data centre costswhile still maintaining an infrastructure that will supportbusiness growth? What more can we do to reducedata centre energy consumption and rising power andcooling bills? How can we increase the agility of ourIT organisation to enable new business initiatives anddrive better business outcomes?

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To help answer questions like these, companies turn tocapacity planning. In some cases, data centres haveteams of dedicated experts who use complex softwaretools to analyse capacity needs, usually for a limitednumber of mission-critical applications. In other cases,server administrators engage in an ad hoc process thatuses spreadsheets and guesswork to develop estimatesof the capacity needs of various applications. To planlarge consolidations, many companies use serviceproviders for analysis and planning projects. These

one-time recommendations don’t factor in the frequentchange that takes place in many environments, so theydon’t help address creeping server and virtual machinesprawl. Prior to the widespread use of virtualisation,capacity planning often meant one server perapplication, regardless of the resources theapplication needed.

When a formal capacity planning team is in place, aplanner might produce one capacity plan per serverper week, focusing on a single server running a singleapplication. That plan will most likely be devoted to a

mission-critical application. Applications that are lessimportant to the business might may never be part ofa capacity plan. Some issues like power consumptionmay never play into the capacity planning process.

Regardless of the approach or scope of their capacityplanning efforts, many organisations are held back bya lack of readily available, detailed and quantitativeinformation on historical and current server workloads,utilisation levels, and power usage. In the absence ofsuch information, server administrators often have littlechoice but to over-provision resources just to be surethat systems can meet the peak loads of certain

applications. As a result, capacity waste is oftena routine part of day-to-day business.

To gain more value from your server investments,your capacity planners need better knowledge ofyour environment, including accurate information onutilisation trends, resource consumption, and best-fitscenarios. Still, data alone isn’t enough. You alsoneed tools that can quickly sort through and analysepotentially massive amounts of data and thengenerate meaningful information that you canuse in your capacity planning efforts.

This sharply targeted information is one of the keysto allocating virtual and physical resources in a moreflexible manner, avoiding over-provisioning, conservingenergy, and controlling costs – while meeting the peakdemands of the applications you support.

This is where HP Capacity Advisor software comesinto play. It arms you with the tools you need forcapacity planning and resource optimisation inyour data centre.

Taking capacityplanning to a new levelDrawing on innovative technology such as SmartSolver, HP Capacity Advisor allows you to takecapacity planning to a new level – and gain a widerange of business benefits. Here are a few of the waysthat HP Capacity Advisor can help your organisation.

Gain deep insight and advancedvirtualisation for better decisions.HP Capacity Advisor collects and analyses thousandsof historical data points from virtual and physicalresources each day. With minimal intrusion, it gathersdata as often as every five minutes to create a clearrecord of server resource utilisation – includingprocessors, memory, disk input/output (I/O), networkI/O, and power. Then, using the HP Smart Solver, HPCapacity Advisor identifies the best fit for workloadsand highlights opportunities to consolidate servers toimprove utilisation and cut power and cooling costs.

Quickly analyse scenarios foroptimal configurations.The analysis tools in HP Capacity Advisor changethe ground rules for capacity planning. You can now

quickly evaluate different scenarios for consolidatingolder and underutilised physical servers onto virtualmachines. You can simulate different workloadconfigurations on different sets of server resources,and then generate reports comparing configurations.You can automatically find best-fit solutions for upto 100 servers at a time. You can easily see whichalternatives use the least computing power, the fewestsystems, and the least energy – information that helpsyou contain data centre costs.

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Figure 1. Meta structure at a glanceHP Capacity Advisor leverages a Central Management Server that consolidates data collected from managed nodes. Data can becollected via software agents installed on managed nodes (shown), or it can be collected without agents via the management toolsembedded in compatible systems (not shown).

Leverage real-time placementinformation for ongoingrebalancing.HP Capacity Advisor gives you the information youneed to make load balancing part of your day-to-daydata centre operations. On an ongoing basis, youcan identify servers that often run short of resources,and then work proactively to shift loads to serversthat are underutilised. When you need to deploy anew workload, HP Capacity Advisor’s five-star ratingsystem lets you instantly see the best placement for

the workload within your existing infrastructure.

Enable energy-aware planningfor a greener data centre.Beyond processing power, HP Capacity Advisor helpsyou overcome your power and cooling challengesby enabling energy-aware capacity planning. Forexample, you might run scenarios that show whathappens to energy consumption under differentconsolidation approaches and then compareconfigurations to determine the more efficient optionsfor power utilisation. The software’s five-star ratingsystem shows you the most energy-efficient choices

for provisioning and redeploying servers.

Table 1. Comparison ofagent-based versus agentlessdata collection

Agent-basedUtilisation Provider (UP)

Agentless(Agentless Configuration File)

Available for HP-UX, Linux, and Microsoft Windows systems Available for Windows systems only

Equally useful in data quality, accuracy, and richness

Requires hosting and updating the UP agent Leverages existing data on the system; no additionalagent hosting or update required

Not susceptible to downtime in the network or the CMS;collected data is held for a maximum of 30 days by the UPfor transfer to the database on the CMS

Susceptible to network or CMS downtime as datais continuously collected by the CMS across the networkfrom each managed system

No additional load on CPU or memory resourcesincurred on the CMS

Small additional load on CPU and memory resources incurredby the agentless data collection service running on the CMS

Low network traffic impact – can store data up to 30 dayslocally and send data at off-peak hours daily or on-demand(allowing for better scaling)

Potential impact on network traffic due to frequentcommunication between node and CMS

CMSCommand line parameters

System names

HP SIM

OS types

Licences

WBEM credentials

‘VSE resourcemembers’

Managed system

Utilisationdaemon

Writes

WBEMserver Utilisation files

Reads

Utilisationprovider

CMS SSLcertificate

Profilefiles

Systemattributes

Workloads

Capcollect

System names

gWLM DB

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These kinds of insights help you reduce energyconsumption through better utilisation of power and

cooling resources and better placement of workloads.By quickly identifying and consolidating inefficientservers onto fewer, more power-efficient ones, youcan reduce energy consumption and cut youroperational costs.

How it worksSo how does HP Capacity Advisor actually work?Let’s take a look under the hood of this high-poweredsoftware product.

Meta structureThe purpose of data collection is to retrieve utilisationdata from managed nodes and store it on the CentralManagement Server (CMS) in a format suitable foruse with scenarios. To do this requires informationfrom a number of local and remote sources:

Utilisation data from the utilisation provider on•each managed node

Information about the managed node from other• Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM)providers on the managed node (not shownin Figure 1)

Information about the managed node from HP•Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM)

Information about the VSE workloads or resources•associated with the managed node from the HPGlobal Workload Manager (gWLM) database(for both ProLiant and Integrity servers)

Information about the managed node stored•during previous collections from the database

Central Management Server (CMS)HP Capacity Advisor is controlled through a Central

Management Server that is installed on a server. TheCMS consolidates data collected from managednodes and makes it available to tools that analysethe data. The CMS builds on and resides within theframework of HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM), thecentral point of administration for complete resource-lifecycle management for HP servers andmulti-operating system environments.

Managed nodesHP Capacity Advisor is set to automatically collect datafrom all discovered managed nodes that are licenced

to run HP Capacity Advisor and from managed nodesthat have HP Insight Capacity Advisor Consolidationsoftware. Managed nodes can be HP ProLiant, HPBladeSystem, HP Integrity, and certain non-HP Windows®-based x86 servers.2

Data collectionData gathering via software agents(‘utilisation providers’)In a typical HP Capacity Advisor installation, softwareagents are installed on managed nodes. These agents,also known as ‘utilisation providers’, collect system and

power utilisation data and send it to the CMS foranalysis. The actual data collection consumes lessthan 1 per cent of the CPU cycle of the managednode where the data is being collected.

Data is collected once every five minutes for fivedifferent metrics: CPU, memory, disk I/O, networkI/O, and power utilisation.1 Over the course of a day,HP Capacity Advisor collects more than 1,000 datapoints for each monitored server, providing a richset of granular data.

Figure 2. HP Capacity Advisor HP Capacity Advisor helps you collect and analyse utilisation data so you can optimise your use of resources.

1. CollectUtilisation data

2. AnalyseFor best-fit placement

3. OptimiseResources continuously

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These data points provide the foundation for adetailed historic profile of system and power utilisation

trends. Drawing on this data pool, HP Capacity Advisor allows you to create utilisation graphs thatshow historical utilisation, data peaks, peak durations,data trends, and forecasted utilisation.

The data gathered by the software agents canbe stored on managed nodes and the CentralManagement Server. Historical data can be kepton the managed systems for up to 30 days beforeit is over-written. The CMS database can store upto four years of data per workload.

Agentless data gathering

In a variation on the typical installation, HP Capacity Advisor can now be deployed without software agentsinstalled on the managed nodes. With this approach,HP Capacity Advisor gathers data via capabilities builtinto Microsoft® Windows server operating systems.

Support for data gathering from non-HP hardwareIn another new capability, HP Capacity Advisor cannow gather and analyse data from non-HP hardware.This includes certain Dell, IBM, and Hitachi Windows-based x86 servers.

Licensing for non-HP servers is achieved through ‘HPInsight Capacity Advisor Consolidation software’, alimited-time use licence for energy-aware capacityplanning. It enables you to collect detailed serverutilisation data across several key metrics for aperiod of up to six months after licence activationon your legacy systems. The legacy systems can beolder HP ProLiant or HP Integrity servers, as wellas certain x86 Dell, IBM, or Hitachi serversrunning Microsoft Windows.

For ongoing capacity planning with unlimited-timeuse, HP Capacity Advisor is available as part of the

HP Insight Dynamics – VSE suite for ProLiant or theHP Virtual Server Environment suite for HP Integrityservers only.

HP Capacity Advisor can also import Sun Solarisdata (SPARC or x86) originally gathered using HP

Software Performance Agents.

Data gathering standardsData is gathered from systems specified using Web-Based Enterprise Management, a set of Web-basedinformation services standards. A WBEM provideragent offers access to a resource. WBEM clientssend requests to providers to get information aboutregistered resources and to access the registeredresources. The WBEM credentials for the systemsare configured during the initial setup of HPSystems Insight Manager.

Use casesHP Capacity Advisor lets you test configurationchanges before actually making the changes, andit helps you manage existing resources to improvetheir utilisation. Using the data collected from yourenvironment, HP Capacity Advisor can calculate whatresource utilisation would look like if a workload’sutilisation were increased or decreased. Further, it cansimulate what resource utilisation might look like ifworkloads were combined or if a new workloadwere added to a server.

For example, HP Capacity Advisor assists you inanswering questions such as these:

Is there room on this system to support•additional work?

Will this particular workload fit on this system?•

Can these physical servers be consolidated as•virtual machines on a single server or multipleservers?

What are the estimated power costs for different•system configurations?

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What does a comparison of several what-if•scenarios reveal about the analysed alternatives?

What is the historic behaviour of a system or•workload?

To illustrate HP Capacity Advisor’s capabilities, let’stake a look at the software in action in some commonuse cases. These use cases include consolidatingservers, rebalancing workloads, and adding newworkloads.

Consolidating serversHP Capacity Advisor lets you quickly evaluate differentscenarios for consolidating older, underutilised, andoften power-hungry physical servers onto virtualmachines. Using the actual, historical utilisation foreach server, you can simulate different workloadconfigurations on different sets of server resources. Youcan automatically find best-fit solutions for up to 100servers at a time. You can easily see which alternativesuse the least over-all computing resources, the fewestsystems, and the least energy.

Example:HP Capacity Advisor shows you that within aparticular pool of servers, some machines have verylow utilisation while a few are approaching 100 percent utilisation – that means they are starved forresources. To optimise resource utilisation, you decideto consolidate these systems onto virtual machinesthat run on a smaller pool of host servers.

Key steps:

Select the systems for potential consolidation based•on utilisation information from HP Capacity Advisor.

Define the parameters of the target systems, such•as the number and type of processors, memory,and network bandwidth and the desired utilisationlimits to apply.

Use HP Smart Solver technology to analyse your•consolidation options for the selected group ofservers. In evaluating your consolidation options,you have the option to use existing VM hosts or tocreate template-generated ‘what-if’ systems basedon characteristics you specify. Smart Solver showsyou how many virtual machines you need, how

many physical hosts you need, and the placementof the virtual machines on the physical hosts.

View HP Capacity Advisor’s suggested best-fit•solutions for consolidation. The five-star rating systemconfirms that workloads are well balanced amongthe physical servers, giving you the confidence tomove forward with your consolidation efforts.

Rebalancing workloadsHP Capacity Advisor makes it easy to balance systemloads across several servers or virtual machines, suchthat workloads are distributed evenly across a set ofresources, without over- or under-utilising the subsetof the servers. Load balancing is based upon CPU,memory, network I/O, and disk I/O capacity, alongwith utilisation limits and headroom. The goal isto distribute workloads so that each system hascomparable headroom.

Example:

To maintain application performance and optimiseresource utilisation, you want to rebalance workloads.In particular, you want to avoid cases where oneapplication is running out of resources while otherapplications have far more resources than they need.

Key steps:

Put HP Smart Solver to work to automatically balance•workloads across a selected set of existing serversor virtual machines hosts.

Use the five-star rating system to identify an ideal•balance of workloads across physical servers orvirtual machines

Rebalance loads, based on HP Capacity Advisor’s•recommendations, to give each workload aboutthe same amount of headroom.

Adding new workloads Adding a new application or set of applications to anexisting server environment requires careful planning.Deciding where to add the new workload can bechallenging. Can it be placed on an existing server?

Or is a new system required? With HP Capacity Advisor, the planning can be based on real data andrealistic modelling to analyse where a new workloadcan be added to the current environment.

HP Capacity Advisor enables you to create scenariosfor what-if planning and forecasting resource usage forsystems and workloads. In these scenarios, you cancreate systems, remove systems, edit system attributes,and move virtual machines. You can create workloads,collect utilisation data for existing workloads, importexisting workload profiles, edit workload demands,

move workloads between systems, park workloads,and delete workloads. After you have run multiplewhat-if scenarios, you can then compare them toanalyse differences and determine your best optionsfor moving forward.

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Figure 3. Utilisation reportsHP Capacity Advisor providesvaluable summaries and detailson resource usage for CPU,memory, network, and disk I/Obandwidth, and powerconsumption and costs.

Example:

You need to deploy a new workload into a virtualisedserver environment. You want to make sure that theworkload gets the resources it needs without affectingthe performance of existing applications.

Key steps:

Use HP Capacity Advisor to run several scenarios•

to simulate the addition of the workload intodifferent physical systems and virtual machines.

Generate a scenario comparison report to compare•key values for two to four scenarios at a time.You can easily look across scenarios to see thedifferences in the results of each.

Use the five-star rating system to immediately•determine the best place to put the workloadwithin your environment.

Add the workload with the confidence that your•existing systems can accommodate the additional

demands.Special use cases for the HPIntegrity server environmentHP Capacity Advisor is a single software product thatcan be deployed in HP ProLiant, HP BladeSystem, andHP Integrity environments. However, when deployedin an HP Integrity environment, HP Capacity Advisorcan explore and answer an expanded set of questionsthat stem from certain capabilities and features ofIntegrity systems.

HP Serviceguard planningIn an HP Integrity clustered server environment, HPCapacity Advisor can be configured to collect datafor a workload within an HP Serviceguard highavailability cluster. This association allows HP Capacity Advisor to track workloads moving from one system toanother as a result of a Serviceguard migration. It alsoallows HP Capacity Advisor to show an uninterruptedhistory of utilisation data for a workload acrossmigrations.

In addition, you can use HP Capacity Advisor to runwhat-if scenarios to determine the best target serversfor failover packages in a Serviceguard environment.

HP Instant Capacity planningHP Integrity Servers are available with the option ofHP Instant Capacity (iCAP). With this option, reserveiCAP processors, cell boards, and memory arepurchased at a fraction of their regular price andinstalled in a server – inactive but ready for use. If you

have the iCAP option available to you, the utilisationview provided by HP Capacity Advisor can help youunderstand if you need to activate iCAP resourcespermanently or for limited periods of time.

Using the tools: basic stepsSo what does it take to get started with HP Capacity Advisor? Here are some of the basic steps involvedin deploying and using the software.

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Figure 4. Scenario comparisonreportsScenario comparison reportshelp you understand theimplications of differentconsolidation scenarios. Thisimage shows a comparisonof scenarios for power usageand power costs.

Step 1: Install the software on the CentralManagement Server. As noted above, HP Capacity Advisor is controlledthrough a Central Management Server (CMS). Thesoftware is installed on a server with other componentsof the HP Insight Dynamics – VSE suite or the HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE), so no separateinstallation is required on the CMS. To use HPCapacity Advisor, you must have a valid licence.

Step 2: Set up data collection for managed nodes.Once the software is installed on the CMS, it’s time tobegin data collection. In this step, you configure HPCapacity Advisor to collect data automatically from alllicenced VSE resources added to HP Systems InsightManager, which provides a consolidated view andcentral point of administration for your infrastructure.

HP Capacity Advisor collects data via agents installedon managed nodes or via an agentless approach. With the agent-based approach, HP Capacity Advisoruses the same data collection agents as the HP Virtualization Manager in HP Insight Dynamics – VSE and HP Virtual Server Environment.

To collect data, you select the target system or systems,schedule the collection task for a later time period orimmediate run, and start the task. Upon installation,HP Capacity Advisor is set to automatically collectdata from all discovered managed nodes that arelicenced to run HP Capacity Advisor and frommanaged nodes that have HP Insight HP Capacity Advisor Consolidation software. The data downloadto the CMS is set to start at midnight on the CMS’s

time clock. This is called the nightly data download.It occurs automatically at this time unless it isrescheduled to a different time.

Step 3: Create scenarios for selected systems. With your data gathering tools in place, you canbegin creating scenarios for selected systems. HPCapacity Advisor allows you to create scenariosto model system behaviour by performing ‘what-if’operations based on collected data. These scenariosare collections of systems and workloads, both realand ‘what-if’ creations.

When preparing to collect data for use in scenariosor for obtaining historical activity reports, consider:

The list of servers from which you want to collect data•

Whether you need to collect data for the first time,•update a data collection, or import previouslycollected data into HP Capacity Advisor

When you want to collect the data•

While scenarios are based on real data, you can editscenarios to modify parameters and model changesto the environment and the configuration of systems

and workloads. You can save scenarios for lateranalysis and print graphically rich reports thatsummarise your findings.

Step 4: Set utilisation limits. With HP Capacity Advisor, you have the ability tospecify when a system is full. For example, you mightset utilisation limits along these lines:

Do not exceed 80 per cent utilisation for more than•30 minutes.

Never exceed 90 per cent utilisation.•

For 99 per cent of the time, utilisation must be•

under 90 per cent.

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In the absence of user-defined limits, the defaultutilisation limits used globally across HP Capacity

Advisor are:CPU utilisation cannot exceed 70 per cent of the•capacity for more than 15 minutes at a time.

Memory utilisation cannot exceed 100 per cent•of the capacity.

Beyond overall system utilisation, you can tailorutilisation limits to specific service level objectivesfor workloads. These limits place service levelobjectives on one or more specific utilisation metrics(CPU, memory, network, or disk utilisation) for anygiven workload. When making changes, such as

the automated system consolidation suggested bythe HP Smart Solver, these utilisation limits arehonoured. This is true for both automated loadbalancing of servers and virtual machines andfor automated workload stacking.

Step 5: Run HP Smart Solver scenarios.HP Smart Solver automates the manual process ofrepeatedly moving workloads onto different systemsto determine an optimal solution to a problem. TheSmart Solver recommends where to place workloadswithin a pool of selected servers to reduce the number

of servers used or to balance workloads across theservers.

The Smart Solver technology uses workload traces toquantify the demands placed by the workloads on theservers. It also uses workload traces to recommendviable placement solutions, subject to user-definedconstraints, such as workload utilisation limits andthe specific resources that may be used.

Smart Solver can perform scenarios for:

Consolidation to virtual machines – Automated•

system consolidation analysis helps you understandyour opportunities to consolidate your existingphysical systems into virtualised resources, therebyconverting the physical systems into VM guests thatreside on VM hosts. You can use existing VM hostsor create template-generated ‘what-if’ systemsbased on characteristics you specify.

Workload stacking – Automated workload stacking•analysis allows you to stack individual workloadsonto existing servers and template-generated‘what-if’ systems that are created based on system

characteristics. This facility allows you to consolidateexisting workloads into as few systems as possible.

Load balancing – Automated load balancing•analysis of servers or VMs gives you the capabilityto balance system loads across several servers or VMs, such that workloads are distributed evenlyacross a set of resources, without overloadingany subset of the servers.

Step 6: Create utilisation forecasts.HP Capacity Advisor provides tools for analysingutilisation data to calculate trends and to combine

existing utilisation data with trend information toproduce projected forecasts. These tools allow youto combine a range of historical data (the forecastdata range) with the annual projected growth rateto produce a forecast model. The forecast model canthen be used to provide a better, more accurateestimate of future utilisation.

These capabilities allow you to better understandhow the utilisation of resources is changing over timeand to create precise forecasts of future utilisation.

Figure 5. Five-star rating systemWith HP Smart Solver’s five-starrating system, you can easilysee which physical servers arebetter matches for particularworkloads.

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Step 7: Generate reports.HP Capacity Advisor utilisation reports provide

valuable summaries and details of resource usagefor CPU, memory, network, and disk I/O bandwidth,and power consumption and costs. These reports areuseful for understanding current resource utilisation orplanning for future requirements. Reports can presentresource utilisation for a scenario, or for one or morecomplexes, systems, or workloads.

HP Capacity Advisor can generate both graphicaland tabular data for presentation. Its Profile Viewerpresents data for one entity at a time within a browser-based application that allows you to manipulate

the data view, including panning through graphicalpresentations, changing utilisation limit values, andinstantly collecting more data or selecting a differentperiod of data to view.

Utilisation reports are produced as HTML pages thatcan be viewed immediately or downloaded in acompressed file for viewing offline in a Web browser.Full reports can be obtained for all utilisation resourcetypes (CPU, memory, network I/O, disk I/O, andpower usage) for one scenario at a time or for oneor more systems or complexes and their associatedworkloads.

A scenario comparison report helps you to comparekey values for two to four scenarios at a time in aformat that makes it easier to look across the scenariosat one time. Comparison reports are also produced inHTML format and are available in a downloadablecompressed file for later viewing in a Web browser.

Key featuresHP Smart SolverHP Smart Solver technology, included in the HPCapacity Advisor product, analyses historicalutilisation data and provides recommendations on thebest fit for various server workloads. You can simulatedifferent workload configurations on different sets ofserver resources and quickly evaluate scenarios forconsolidating older and underutilised physical serversonto virtual machines. HP Smart Solver helps youautomatically find best-fit solutions for up to 100workloads at a time, and easily see which alternatives

use the least computing power, the fewest servers,and the least energy.

Five-star rating systemHP Smart Solver recommendations are displayedalong with a simple five-star rating system, so you caneasily see which physical servers are better matchesfor particular workloads. Here’s what the stars tell you:

0 stars – Violates one or more utilisation limits•

1 star – Meets utilisation limits but there may be no•room for growth

2, 3, and 4 stars – Has room to grow by 25, 50,•or 75 per cent, respectively

5 stars – Has room for the workload to double•in size

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Utilisation reports are produced as HTML pages thatcan be viewed immediately or downloaded in acompressed file for viewing offline in a Web browser.Full reports can be obtained for all utilisation resourcetypes (CPU, memory, network I/O, disk I/O, andpower usage) for one scenario at a time or for oneor more systems or complexes and their associatedworkloads.

A scenario comparison report helps you comparekey values for two to four scenarios at a time in aformat that makes it easier to look across multiplescenarios at one time. Comparison reports are alsoproduced in HTML format and are available in adownloadable compressed file for later viewing ina Web browser.

Integration with other HP toolsHP Capacity Advisor is closely integrated with variousHP management software tools and features. Theseinclude HP Systems Insight Manager, logical servermanagement, HP Virtualization Manager, and HP

Server Migration Pack.

HP Systems Insight Manager HP Capacity Advisory is closely integrated withHP Systems Insight Manager, the central pointof administration for complete resource-lifecyclemanagement for HP servers and multi-OSenvironments. This software – that ships with all HPProLiant, HP BladeSystem, and HP Integrity servers –provides a consolidated view of everything you needto manage your HP infrastructure from anywhere.

Logical server management

HP Capacity Advisor plays a key role in the logicalserver management capabilities of the HP InsightDynamics – VSE suite. A logical server is a serverprofile that is easily created and freely moved acrossphysical or virtual machines. By detaching the logicalidentity from the physical resource, you can create ormove logical servers on any suitable virtual or physicalmachine – on demand. In the HP Insight Dynamics – VSE environment, HP Capacity Advisor works in thebackground to collect and analyse data and guidedecisions on the movement of workloads and logicalservers. It displays the previously mentioned five-star

ratings to help you make intelligent placementdecisions.

HP Virtualization Manager HP Virtualization Manager provides access to the toolsthat create, manage, and move logical servers. It canbe launched directly from HP Systems Insight Managerto display and manage logical servers, as well asother resources in the HP Insight Dynamics – VSEand the HP Virtual Server Environment. HP Capacity Advisor keeps track of all the systems that fall underthe Virtualization Manager umbrella. HP Capacity

Advisor is aware of where workloads are and howthey fit together.

HP Server Migration PackThe full version of HP Insight Dynamics – VSE includesan unlimited-moves licence for HP Server MigrationPack. This software allows you to move existing serversand their content to compatible physical serversand virtualisation platforms. This makes it easy toimplement HP Capacity Advisor’s consolidation andworkload balancing recommendations.

Putting HP Capacity Advisor to work forongoing optimisationHP ProLiant and HP BladeSystemwith ProLiant servers With HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers, HPCapacity Advisor is available as part of the HP InsightDynamics – VSE software suite.

HP Integrity servers andIntegrity blades With Integrity servers, HP Capacity Advisor isavailable as part of the HP Virtual Server Environmentsuite and the HP-UX 11i Operating Environments – the Virtual Server Operating Environment and the DataCenter Operating Environment.

LicensingIn the most common approach, licensing is based

on the number of nodes that HP Capacity Advisormanages. For HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystemservers, licences are paid for on a per-server or per-server-blade basis. For HP Integrity servers, pricing isbased on the number of CPU cores that are managedby HP Capacity Advisor. There is no additional chargefor the Central Management Server.

In addition, HP Capacity Advisor is also availablevia a limited-time licence, discussed below.

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Technology for better business outcomes

To learn more, visit www.hp.com/go/insightdynamicsLinux is a U.S. registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registeredtrademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

© Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subjectto change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the expresswarranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed asconstituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions

Putting HP Capacity Advisor to work forone-time consolidationHP Insight HP Capacity AdvisorConsolidation software

HP Capacity Advisor software may be purchased viaa limited-time licence that may be suitable for certainsystem consolidation projects. Under an HP InsightCapacity Advisor Consolidation software licence,you can collect detailed server utilisation data acrossseveral key metrics for up to six months after licenceactivation. This licence gives you access to the fullpower of HP Capacity Advisor, including SmartSolver technology, to analyse and optimise servercapacity and power utilisation for HP and certainnon-HP Windows-based x86 servers.

Achieve better businessoutcomesThe shift to real-time capacity planning can make a bigdifference in your data centre. With this new approachto capacity planning, you’re not locked into the rigidallocation of over-provisioned resources. You can nowcomplement your long-term consolidation initiatives

with routine capacity planning and the ongoingoptimisation of resources.

Through this more advanced approach to capacityplanning, you can increase utilisation of your servers,improve the performance of the applications, andmake better use of your power and cooling resources.In addition, better capacity planning can help yousave valuable floor space, avoid costly expansionprojects, and extend the life of your data centre.

These are the types of benefits that can make adifference in your company’s bottom line. Ultimately,

better capacity planning can lead to better businessoutcomes.

For more informationTo learn more about HP Capacity Advisor, visit

www.hp.com/go/insightdynamics .

1. Power data is gathered for instrumented systems that support

power metering. In addition, power can be estimated for what-ifconfigurations.

2. For details, see the ‘Suppor ted systems’ matrix near the end of this

paper.

http://www.hp.com/go/insightdynamics





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