Workload Optimization Manager 2.0.1 Release Notes

August 20, 2018

This document describes issues that are addressed in Workload Optimization Manager 2.0.1 – Release Date: August 20, 2018. Starting with version 1.1.3, builds are cumulative. Applying 2.0.1 onto an earlier release (starting from1.1.3) of Workload Optimization Managerwill include all previous fixes. Please see the Workload Optimization Manager documentation for earlier versions of the Release Notes.

Version 2.0.1 is a maintenance patch for Workload Optimization Manager version 2.0. The patch does not introduce new features. For a list of issues this patch addresses, see Fixed Issues on page 6.

For any questions, please contact Cisco Technical Support.

IMPORTANT: Starting with version 1.2, Workload Optimization Manager introduces Workload-Based licensing (where a VM is one workload). If you are from version 1.1.3, then you must apply a workload-based license after you perform the update. To update from version 1.1.3:

1. Get a Workload-Based license from your Cisco Representative.

2. Perform the update using the procedure below.

3. Apply the Workload-Based license to your updated version of Workload Optimization Manager. Do not apply the Workload-Based license until after you have updated from 1.1.3.

If you update and then do not change to a Workload-Based license, you will not have access to any Workload Optimization Manager features in the new version. For more information, and to get a Workload-Based license, contact your Cisco Representative.

Templates for UCS and HyperFlex serversWorkload Optimization Manager includes templates for UCS and HyperFlex servers that are offered via Cisco SmartPlays. You can use these templates when running plans to calculate future capacity requirements.

note: The Cisco SmartPlay bundles can change, but these changes will not necessarily be reflected in the Workload Optimization Manager templates for this version. Before running plans, contact your support representative to be sure you have the correct template settings. Plans make calculations based on resource allocations that are specified in these templates. If you don’t have the latest template settings, your plans might not reflect the true values in the SmartPlay bundles.

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Cisco Systems, Inc. www.cisco.com

What's New for Version 2.0The 2.0 family of Workload Optimization Manager releases includes the following new features:

User Interface Enhancements

We continue to work on how we present information about your environment. New things to see include:

— Dashboards Page – This release includes a number of additions to dashboards:

* Executive DashboardsWorkload Optimization Manager ships with two executive dashboards in place – the On-Prem dashboard and the Cloud dashboard. The On-Prem executive dashboard shows the overall health, performance, and capacity in your on-prem datacenter. The Cloud executive dashboard shows your overall cloud expenditures and how you can improve performance and reduce cost.

* Chart WidgetsThis release includes a number of new chart widgets. In addition, the charts are more interactive. You can click legends to show/hide data, and individual charts include their own time-range selector. As you create dashboards, use the new Widget Gallery to choose and set up the charts you want.

— Color Scheme – We have changed the color scheme to make it easier to scan for and find the information you want.

— Scope and Groups – Now, when you use the Search page to set a scope, you can save the resulting scope as a group. You can use that saved group to scope policies or plans, and you can save it as a favorite scope for later searches.

— Supply Chain Navigator – For a given scope, you can use the supply chain to zoom in on specific tiers of entities in that scope.

Enhancements to Action Recommendations

To improve the quality of resize recommendations for workloads on the public cloud, Workload Optimization Manager includes the current storage and network requirements. Even if the compute resources are underutilized on a workload, if the available templates cannot support the storage or network requirements then Workload Optimization Manager will not recommend a change.

For resizing VMs and Storage, this release introduces tuned scaling action settings. These settings give you increased control over the action mode for the affected actions. With this feature you can rely on automation for resize actions within a normal range (the tuned scaling range), and direct Workload Optimization Manager to post more conservative actions when the issue lies outside of the scaling range. For an overview of tuned scaling, see "Tuned Scaling Action Settings" in the User Guide.

In addition, we have clarified a number of the action descriptions that Workload Optimization Manager displays in actions lists.

Public Cloud Enhancements

This release improves the display of costs on the public cloud, showing you:

— RI Inventory – See the count of RI workloads, account details, rate of utilization, effective cost, and savings for the RIs in your inventory.

— RI Utilization – The ratio of your RI inventory to the used RIs

— RI Coverage – The ratio of total workloads to RI matches in your environment

In addition, Workload Optimization Manager analyzes the history of resource utilization in your environment to recommend new RI purchases for the appropriate workloads.

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Plan Enhancements

This release adds two new plans to the planning wizard:

— Alleviate Pressure Plan – Use this plan to identify what workload to move from a cluster that is running "hot". It shows you the least amount of changes you should make to reduce pressure on the "hot" cluster.

— Optimize Cloud Plan – For cloud environments, see how to get the greatest savings possible while still assuring performance for all of your workloads. For example, this plan identifies opportunities to move workloads into RI purchase plans, as well as ways to reduce allocated resources without affecting application performance.

Effective Host CPU

CPU cores and clock speed are not the only factors to determine processing power. For example, differences in processor architecture can result in CPUs with more or less effective capacity, given the same clock speeds.

For newer models of machines, the effective CPU capacity is a result of the number of cores, clock speed, and advances in processor design. Workload Optimization Manager includes a catalog of CPU models based on industry-standard benchmark data. This catalog maps CPU models to effective CPU capacity. To improve action recommendations, Workload Optimization Manager discovers the effective capacity for hosts in your environment and includes that information in its calculations. For planning, you can create host templates that include specific CPU models – The plan uses that information when calculating placement recommendations.

Enhanced Container Support

This release includes the following enhancements to actions and automation for containers:

— Constraints – Workload Optimization Manager imports Resource Quota as constraints to refine scaling and placement decisions. Namespaces, Projects and Organizations, and Spaces appear as Virtual Datacenters in the supply chain. Cloud Foundry constraints include Memory Allocation and Number of Services for a Quota Plan. Kubernetes constraints include Memory Allocation and CPU Allocation for Quota objects.

— Container Resize – Workload Optimization Manager supports automatic and manual resize actions.

— Diego Cell Scaling – With Pivotal Operations Manager targets, Workload Optimization Manager supports Diego Cell scaling actions.

— VM Naming for Pivotal – With Pivotal Operations Manager targets, Workload Optimization Manager names VMs as follows: {PCF Job name}#{index number}[{IaaS VM name}]

— Container Plans – You can run plans to see how many worker nodes and cells you need to satisfy changes in Container or Pod demand.

Enhanced Target Support

This version of Workload Optimization Manager introduces the following target enhancements:

— Cisco Tetration – Connect Workload Optimization Manager to the Cisco Tetration platform to discover network flow between workloads, and use keep critical network traffic on as short a path as possible.

— Cisco HyperFlex – This release introduces support for Cisco HyperFlex as a Hyperconverged target. HyperFlex targets add Disk Array entities to the supply chain, and receive more granular information from the compute resources in your environment.

— PaaS Targets – This release introduces support for Pivotal Operations Manager as a PaaS platform target. Integration with Pivotal Ops Manager adds Pivotal identifiers to the VM names, so you can use naming to identify these VMs and build groups. Taking advantage of Pivotal Operations Manager and BOSH, you can execute Diego Cell scaling actions. The Pivotal Ops Manager target also adds the related Cloud Foundry endpoint target, which enables discovery and management of the related resources.

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— AppDynamics – This release introduces support for the AppDynamics platform. With an AppDynamics target, Workload Optimization Manager discovers the logical Business Application, and discovers the nodes that it contains.

— HPE 3Par – This release introduces support for Adaptive Optimization (AO). AO for HPE 3Par enables management of data storage across two or three tiers. AO places storage regions on the appropriate tier in response to periodic analysis that AO performs.

Configuration RequirementsFor this release of Workload Optimization Manager, you should satisfy the following configuration requirements.

Update the Install Script VersionTo update from version 1.2.1 to any later version, you must set the version of the install script that Workload Optimization Manager runs to perform the update. These steps are also included in the Installation Manual.

note: You must perform these steps when updating from 1.2.1 to a later version. You do not need to perform these steps when updating from versions 1.1.3 through 1.2, and you do not need to perform these steps when updating from version 1.2.2 or later. If you perform these steps when they’re not needed they will have no ill effect, and the update will execute correctly.

1. Log into a shell session on the Workload Optimization Manager instance.

SSH into the Workload Optimization Manager instance as root (the default password is vmturbo).

2. Execute commands to set the version for the update script.

In the shell session, execute the following commands:

sed -i "s/vmt-/cwom-/g" /srv/www/cgi-bin/vmtadmin.cgi

sed -i "s/vmturbo_temp/cisco_temp/g" /srv/www/cgi-bin/vmtadmin.cgi

sed -i "s/tmp\/vmturbo/tmp\/cisco/g" /srv/www/cgi-bin/vmtadmin.cgi

Security Requirements for BrowsersFor web browsers to communicate with Apache, the Apache configuration requires TLS version 1.1 or later. To use versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 and 10, you must enable TLS 1.1 or later (in Internet Options > Advanced).

Updating the Tomcat ServerThere are circumstances when you might choose to upgrade the Tomcat server on Workload Optimization Manager to a later version. In this case you must copy a local configuration file to the tomcat installation.

After you update the Tomcat server: Copy the file /usr/libexec/tomcat/server.local to /usr/libexec/tomcat/server

To ensure that this server configuration file is executable, perform the command: chmod 755 /usr/libexec/tomcat/server

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Transport Layer Security RequirementsBy default Workload Optimization Manager requires Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.2 to establish secure communications with targets. Most targets should have TLSv1.2 enabled. However, some targets might not have TLS enabled, or they might have enabled an earlier version. In that case, you will see handshake errors when Workload Optimization Manager tries to connect with the target service. When you go to the Target Configuration view, you will see a Validation Failed status for such targets.

In particular, we have found that NetApp filers often have TLS disabled by default, and that the latest version they support is TLSv1. If your NetApp target suddenly fails to validate after installing Workload Optimization Manager 5.4 or later, this is probably the cause.

If target validation fails because of TLS support, you might see validation errors with the following strings: No appropriate protocol

To correct this error, ensure that you have enabled the latest version of TLS that your target technology supports. If this does not resolve the issue, please contact Technical Support.

Certificates does not conform to algorithm constraints

To correct this error, refer to the documentation for your target technology (for example, refer to NetApp documentation) for instructions to generate a certification key with a length of 1024 or greater on your target server. If this does not resolve the issue, please contact Cisco Technical Support.

Enabling HTTP and HTTPS ProxiesWorkload Optimization Manager supports the use of HTTP and HTTPS proxies for internet communication. However, you must edit the Tomcat Server configuration file to add the required system variables.

The file you must edit is on your Workload Optimization Manager server at /usr/libexec/tomcat/server

In this file, search for the OPTIONS statement. It should appear in the config file similar to the following:

FLAGS="$($JAVA_OPTS) $CATALINA_OPTS"

OPTIONS="-Dcatalina.base=$CATALINA_BASE …"

Add the following flags to the OPTIONS statement, giving values for your proxies:

-Dhttp.proxyHost

-Dhttp.proxyPort

-Dhttps.proxyHost

-Dhttps.proxyPort

-Dhttp.proxyUser

-Dhttp.proxyPassword

-Dhttps.proxyUser

-Dhttps.propyPassword

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The resulting OPTIONS statement should be similar to the following:

OPTIONS="-Dcatalina.base=$CATALINA_BASE \

-Dcatalina.home=$CATALINA_HOME \

-Dhttp.proxyHost=111.10.10.123 -Dhttp.proxyPort=123 \

-Dhttps.proxyHost=112.10.10.123 -Dhttps.proxyPort=456 \

-Dhttp.proxyUser=user -Dhttp.proxyPassword=password \

-Dhttps.proxyUser=user -Dhttps.propyPassword=password"

Note that the values you provide for this file must match the values you provide when specifying a proxy in the Workload Optimization Manager user interface. After you make these changes, restart the Tomcat server.

For further assistance, contact Technical Support.

Enabling IOPS and Network Monitoring for OpenStack MitakaThe Target Configuration Guide gives instructions to connect to OpenStack targets. However, if you are running OpenStack Mitaka, you must perform additional configuration on the Mitaka platform to enable IOPS and Network data collection from Physical Machines.

SMI-S Provider Versions for EMC VNX and EMC VMAX Storage SolutionsTo connect to EMC VNX and VMAX disk arrays, Workload Optimization Manager uses EMC SMI-S providers that have the given disk arrays added to them. Note that VNX and VMAX support different versions of SMI-S Providers:

VNX

For VNX and VNX2 arrays, use SMI-S version 4.6.2, based on Solutions Enabler 7.6.2. We have verified Workload Optimization Manager control of VNX block storage using SMI-S version 4.6.2 as a target.

VMAX

For VMAX arrays, use SMI-S version 8.1, which is included in Solutions Enabler 8.1 – We have verified Workload Optimization Manager control of VMAX storage arrays using SMI-S version 8.1 as a target.

Fixed Issues Fixed: In the JSON API, if you set a scope to a call to the stats endpoint, then the API does not return consistent

data.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, when a Workload Placement Policy causes a VM to move to a host, and then some other action moves the VM to a host that is not in the scope of the placement policy, Workload Optimization Manager can show that the VM consumes resources from both hosts.

Fixed: For cloud environments, the widgets for Potential Savings and Necessary Investments do not match the savings or investments that appear in the actions.

Fixed: In Azure environments, storage cost depends on the type of storage you have purchased. For unattached, unmanaged standard storage, you are charged for utilized storage. However, Workload Optimization Manager calculates cost based on what storage has been allocated. As a result, calculated costs can be higher than actual costs.

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In reports this can show in two ways:

— Current costs can be overstated.

— Potential savings for moves to other storage can be overstated.

Fixed: When moving a VM that requires swap space that is greater than the VM's allocated storage capacity, the move can fail because of insufficient disk space.

Fixed: The API does not return necessary consumer data for requests to .../entities/uuid.

Fixed: When running plans that add VM by template, uner some circumstances the plan incorrectly fails to place the VMs. The plan also inflates the count of unplaced VMs because it counts the same VM twice for failure to place on a host and failure to place on storage.

Fixed: Under some circumstances in environments that show high ready queue utilization on hosts, Workload Optimization Manager can recommend excessive VM move actions.

Fixed: CPU Provisioned Used and Memory Provisioned Used settings made for a host do not take effect on the given host.

Fixed: The nightly plans that calculate headroom do not correctly incorporate global changes to the Maximum Host utilization settings.

Fixed: In vCenter environments, if DRS Rules are defined but DRS is turned off, Workload Optimization Manager does not import the DRS rules as workload placement policies.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, discovery of HPE OneView targets can fail to complete when the target returns unexpected data.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, after you set the action mode to Automatic for storage moves, the actions list shows associated actions in the Manual mode.

Fixed: When you create a Lock VM To Datastore policy, Workload Optimization Manager will still move VMs not in that policy onto the locked datastores.

Fixed: In some environments the performance to calculate actions for the environment is unacceptable.

Fixed: Performance when calculating workload placement for reservations is unacceptable.

Fixed: For Migrate to Cloud plans, the plan scenario uses action modes that are set up in the real-time market. If the affected entities disable actions, then the plan will not execute the affected actions. This can result in the plan not migrating the VMs in the plan scope.

Fixed: In large NetApp environments, Workload Optimization Manager posts an error when it tries to discover more than 500 entities. The NetApp API limits returned data for each request to 500 entities, and Workload Optimization Manager does not page such large requests.

Fixed: Under some circumstances in Nutanix environments, Workload Optimization Manager fails to discover all the disk arrays in the environment.

Fixed: Workload Optimization Manager recommends actions that show a negligible improvement in resource utilization. To minimize these actions, Workload Optimization Manager should compare the processing cost of an action to its projected value.

Fixed: The HTML user interface does not show values for chassis power and cooling.

Fixed: For Migrate to Cloud plans, when calculating costs affected by RI savings, the plan results can show different costs than the costs you see when you export XML for the plan widgets.

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Fixed: Under some circumstances in vCenter environments, Workload Optimization Manager does not discover and show storage latency and IOPS data.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, Workload Optimization Manager execute actions outside of a scheduled action window. This can happen when it executes the action properly within the action window, and then the action window closes. However, Workload Optimization Manager does not change the action mode back to the more restrictive setting.

Fixed: For environments that include Hyper-V and vCenter hypervisors, Workload Optimization Manager can discover one cluster through both hypervisors but assume they are different clusters. This occurs because of upper- and lower-case cluster names for the different hypervisors.

Fixed: For Cisco UCS environments, the user interface and the API do not display power, cooling, and space utilization for Chassis, Host and IO Module entities.

Fixed: For cloud environments, after taking some actions the Cost Breakdown widgets do not show accurate cost results.

Fixed: In the lists of actions, the chart includes a control to sort the actions by date, but that sort does not take effect.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, Workload Optimization Manager does not enable you to delete a custom dashboard. Assume a user creates a custom dashboard, then shares it with ALL. If you delete that user account, then you will not be able to delete the custom dashboard.

Fixed: When running discovery for vCenter targets, if the vCenter tag service fails, then discovery should continue to discover the managed entities. However, in this case the discovery fails.

Fixed: Workload Optimization Manager reports do not include savings for VM actions in a cloud environment.

Fixed: When you update from earlier versions of Workload Optimization Manager, the new version introduces separate VMEM and VCPU action mode settings for resizing up and resizing down. These should reflect the earlier settings for VM Resize Up and Resize Down. However, the update assumes the action modes should all be Manual.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, after you set an action to DISABLED, Workload Optimization Manager can still post the action in RECOMMEND mode.

Fixed: In vCenter environments, after moving a host out of maintenance mode there are conditions when it takes and hour before Workload Optimization Manager recognizes the change.

Fixed: In the HTML user interface, after you change the template to use in a nightly plan, the plan fails to run.

Fixed: To simulate an environment but not impact a live environment, you can load an exported topology. If the simulation requires empty static groups, then the exported topology does not include those empty static groups.

Fixed: It's possible for Workload Optimization Manager to have stale data for an entity. FOr example, if the target fails to collect data for a host, then Workload Optimization Manager will assume the last known values for that host. Even though the data is stale, Workload Optimization Manager generates actions that affect the entity. This can result in improper actions.

Fixed: Under some circumstances Workload Optimization Manager fails to complete discovery of 3Par targets.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, the performance for XenServer discovery is unacceptable, and it discovers incomplete data.

Fixed: Under some circumstances for Nutanix environments, Workload Optimization Manager does not recommend actions for the discovered entities.

Fixed: For Azure environments, the estimated cloud costs that Workload Optimization Manager displays do not match the costs you can see in the Azure user interface.

Fixed: In an HA environment, after VMs have been moved to a failover host, when the conditions return to normal the VMs do not move off of the failover host and onto other hosts.

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Fixed: For the Top 5 widgets, if you scope the widget to a cluster or other group, and then choose to Show All, the widget does not reflect the scope that you have set.

Fixed: The user interface to configure the Multiple Resources chart does not enable settings for Storage Access and Storage Access peak.

Fixed: For HyperFlex environments, under some circumstances Workload Optimization Manager generates actions to provision new datastores when it should generate a resize action.

Fixed: In projection plans, you can specify addition of workload to recur at specified intervals. Under some circumstances the option to set up recurrence appears even though you are not creating that type of plan. In that case, the option appears but you cannot set it.

Fixed: For a user with a role set to Observer, the user interface does not display the proper views.

Fixed: When enabling the Proactive Support feature, even if you provide valid credentials for your Support account, the login to enable the feature does not succeed.

Fixed: In plans that use templates to replace hosts or that migrate workloads to hosts that are replaced by templates, if the VMs use Raw Device Mapping (RDM) storage, then they will be unplaced in the plan because the templates do not expose RDM.

Fixed: The audit log no longer tracks all DEVICE MOVED actions. To improve logging of changes to the environment, logging of this event should be included.

Fixed: Workload Improvement charts show confusing data. The chart appropriately averages the results of actions over time. However, the chart also averages the count of actions taken over time. The chart should show the sum of actions taken over time.

Fixed: In VMM environments, for VMs with multiple virtual HDs, then storage move actions fail to execute.

Fixed: The analysis to calculate RI purchases waits two weeks after a tomcat restart before recommending RI purchase actions in real time. Workload Optimization Manager should perform this analysis after the first round of discovery is complete.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, Workload Optimization Manager fails to validate and discover docker targets.

Fixed: In environments where the string to describe the placement of a workload can exceed 200 characters, Migrate to Cloud plans fail to complete. In the plan results it appears that the plan cannot place workloads on the cloud.

Fixed: Under some circumstances in AWS environments, if you change the application priority to MISSION CRITICAL for a scope of VMs, then Workload Optimization Manager can automatically power on idle VMs even if the restart action is set to be DISABLED or MANUAL for that scope.

Fixed: In the Classic User Interface, when the Health chart shows entities with critical risks, if you click on the chart then a panel appears to display the individual risks. However, this panel is empty even though Workload Optimization Manager shows critical risks.

Fixed: When adding multiple AppDynamics targets, if the AppDynamics targets are running as SaaS then under some circumstances Workload Optimization Manager assumes the multiple targets are duplicates, and will not validate the subsequent instances.

Fixed: The tomcat configuration results in deleting recent log files when rotating the logs.

Fixed: In AppDynamics environments, if you have multiple database collectors to gather metrics from the same databases, then Workload Optimization Manager can fail to discover the metrics for the affected databases.

Fixed: Add Workload plans that use templates to add more workload to the plan fail to execute, and they show NA for many of the plan results.

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Fixed: For actions to resize a public cloud workload that has a cost of zero, Workload Optimization Manager can incorrectly show savings (there are no savings to gain on a zero-cost workload).

Fixed: Under some circumstances, the nightly plans to calculate headroom for a cluster calculate zero headroom even when the cluster has hosts that can provide resources for the templated VM.

Fixed: In VMM environments, a Storage Move action moves the VM configuration file and all of the disks associated with the VM to the new storage location. This occurs even if the VM has storage that uses different shared storage clusters, or if the VM configuration file is on a different shared storage.

Fixed: When showing the number of hosts in a cluster, the user interface displays one more than the actual count of hosts.

Fixed: For charts that show trend lines for multiple resources, the charts do not display correctly when you choose to view peaks of multiple resources.

Fixed: In XtremIO environments, Workload Optimization Manager recognizes a different IOPS capacity for the disk array than it discovers for the storage controller. The result is an incorrectly low IOPS capacity for the disk array.

Fixed: Suspend actions for VMs on the cloud do not include action descriptions.

Fixed: When you enable datastore browsing, Workload Optimization Manager performs discovery to identify the associated VMs. If your user account does not have privileges to discover all these VMs then they will not appear in the supply chain. However, after browsing datastores these VMs incorrectly appear in the supply chain even though the account does not have privileges.

Fixed: If you set a schedule window that opens before midnight, and then closes the next day, then the scheduled policy changes do not occur.

Fixed: In plans that are configured to disable resizing of entities, the plan still recommends reducing reserved capacity on VMs.

Fixed: Under some circumstances discovery of AWS environments fails to complete.

Fixed: When you create a user group, Workload Optimization Manager does not allow creation of groups with duplicate names, and posts an error message. However, the error message does not give enough information to understand the source of the duplicate name. For example, if Workload Optimization Manager discovers a folder via a hypervisor, and you try to create a group of the same name as the discovered folder, that is a duplicate group name.

Fixed: For Active Directory user accounts, when users try to log into the update.html page, if they have not first logged into the product user interface then this other login will fail.

Fixed: When setting up an HTTP proxy, if you include special characters in the password (for example, the # character), then Workload Optimization Manager does not record the proxy settings.

Fixed: Under conditions when a VM move action fails for some reason (for example, loss of network connectivity), it is possible that the underlying host will reject subsequent VM move actions.

Fixed: If you configure a placement or analysis policy and use a scope that is a group of groups, then Workload Optimization Manager does not apply that policy to the scope. For example, the group Physical Machines by Cluster is a group of clusters. Workload Optimization Manager will not apply a custom policy to that scope.

Fixed: Under some circumstances, after setting the priority for applications to be less than critical, Workload Optimization Manager can fail to recommend suspending the VM even though a suspend action is appropriate.

Fixed: In Azure environments, after you set a policy to exclude specific templates, Workload Optimization Manager generates unnecessary actions to reconfigure VMs in the environment.

Fixed: In VMM environments, if the VMM targets loose contact with managed VMs then Workload Optimization Manager posts excessive log messages.

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Fixed: In AppDynamics environments that include on-prem and cloud applications, Workload Optimization Manager discovery can result in building an incorrect supply chain.

Known Issues Under some circumstances, where you have different groups to scope custom automation policies, after you have

enabled automation and then disabled it, Workload Optimization Manager continues to execute actions on that scope automatically.

If you encounter this situation, open the Classic User Interface and navigate to the given settings for that scope. In the Classic User Interface you should see that automation is still enabled. Disable it there and save.

Under some circumstances Workload Optimization Manager posts actions as RECOMMENDED even though they are configured to be AUTOMATED.

In charts that show tables, if the table contains more than 500 cells then the user interface disables the option to export the chart as PDF. You can still export the chart as a CSV file to load in a spreadsheet.

For vCenter environments, upgrades to the latest version of Workload Optimization Manager include changes to how the system tracks discovered entities. As a result, you might see a loss of historical data, and you will need to reconfigure placement policies on clusters that are discovered by the impacted vCenter targets.

When you view the Accepted Actions chart, the field that identifies who accepted the given action shows an internal ID, rather than the appropriate user name.

In Azure environments, if a region or subscribed account does not grant Workload Optimization Manager access to the pricing data, then Workload Optimization Manager charts show a cost of $0. The charts should display a message that the cost data was not available.

In HyperFlex environments, when Workload Optimization Manager makes excessive calls to the HyperFlex controller, the controlled can stop sending replies to these calls.

When running plans to migrate workload to the cloud, be sure to choose the Migrate to Cloud option, and do not use the Workload Migration option. If you use Workload Migration, you can successfully set up a migration to the cloud, but the resulting plan might not choose the least expensive regions for workload placement.

When you configure a plan that uses host templates to add hosts to the environment, you must ignore constraints. In the plan configuration, click General (in the plan configuration supply chain), and then turn on Ignore Constraints.

The User Guide does not include this required step.

By default Apache no longer supports host names with underscore characters in the name. When you deploy Workload Optimization Manager, you should deploy it to a VM that does not include those characters in its name. If the host does include an underscore character, then Apache will respond with a 400 error when you try to open the user interface.

If you cannot change the host name, then you can use a workaround in the Apache configuration file. For more information, contact Technical Support.

For public cloud environments, under some circumstances Workload Optimization Manager displays incorrect values in the Cloud Cost Comparison chart.

To collect valid cloud cost statistics, the Hourly Saved Statistics must be set to a value greater than 24 hours. To check this setting, navigate to Settings : Maintenance Options in the user interface.

It is also possible that after you make changes to RI Cost, the values in this chart can be incorrect. If you make changes to Settings : Budget and Costs : RI COST, then you should rediscover your cloud targets, and wait 24 hours for the cost values to align with the new settings.

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In AWS environments, under certain circumstances Workload Optimization Manager can show negative costs in charts for specific regions. This can occur when the AWS target indicates that it offers templates, but those templates are not truly available. In that case Workload Optimization Manager calculates negative values for costs in that region.

The browser that you use for the Workload Optimization Manager user interface must be synchronized with the Workload Optimization Manager server to within one minute. Without this synchronization, Workload Optimization Manager can show incorrect metric values.

When setting up a Migrate To Cloud plan, it is possible to choose a group of cloud VMs to migrate. You can run such a plan to simulate migration from one region to another or from one provider to another.

However, you should not use this plan to freely migrate workloads to any location within a provider. For example, do not choose to migrate AWS workloads and then choose the AWS provider as the migration destination.

If your goal is to see the best placement for all the workloads on a service provider, use the Optimize Cloud plan and remove any placement constraints.

In OpenStack environments, when you set up reservations to deploy workloads via OpenStack templates you must constrain the deployment to the OpenStack datacenter.

When you define the workload to deploy, you specify a template to deploy and any constraints that you want Workload Optimization Manager to respect. To deploy an OpenStack template, turn on the Limit initial placement to locations you specify constraint, and manually choose the datacenter or datacenters that support the OpenStack template.

Workload Optimization Manager now requires HTTPS to connect to the user interface, and to connect to the API. Also, API connections no longer accept clear-text authentication, so you cannot include authentication in URLs to execute API commands. Instead, you should use curl commands to execute API commands.

To support HTTPS, Workload Optimization Manager includes a self-signed certificate by default. We recommend that you install a certificate from a trusted Certificate Authority. If you do not install a trusted certificate, you can still use curl to execute API commands if you include the -k flag.

After editing the IP address of a Workload Optimization Manager target or deleting a Workload Optimization Manager target, we recommend that you restart Tomcat in order for the Supply Chain to correctly reflect the changes.

Workload Optimization Manager policies include a default policy named Global Actions Mode. You can use this policy to globally disable all actions in Workload Optimization Manager. If you turn on the setting to disable all actions, then Disabled takes effect for all actions. However, in the default policies the action modes remain as you have set them. The user interface does not show that you have globally disabled these actions.

For cases where actions indicate provisioning new hosts, the Optimized Improvements chart does not include the hosts to provision in the After Plan section.

Workload Optimization Manager now supports deploying on M5 instance types through the AWS marketplace.

If you use Google Chrome for the Workload Optimization Manager user interface, you must turn off the Chrome Preview mode before you download reports.

In AWS environments that use RI templates across access regions, you should be sure to have a single master account, and include that master and all sub accounts as Workload Optimization Manager targets.

If you experience situations where RI actions seem to recommend templates that are not available in the indicated regions, verify that you have included all the sub accounts as targets. If the problem persists, contact Technical Support.

Under some circumstances in AWS environments, Workload Optimization Manager cannot recommend changing a workload from on-demand billing to an RI purchase plan. This occurs when the name, description, and platform fields of the workload's image do not clearly identify the OS. In that case, Workload Optimization Manager cannot identify the RI that matches the given workload.

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To enable RI optimization for all of your AWS workloads, make sure the image fields include a clear OS name such as ubuntu, centos, or Windows 10. If your account can find an RI that matches the identified OS, then Workload Optimization Manager can recommend switching that workload to an RI purchase plan.

Do not make policy settings on parent groups (groups of groups).

When you make policy settings on a parent group, Workload Optimization Manager resets the setting to the default every time you restart. This can have unintended consequences if you want these policies to implement business rules that control Workload Optimization Manager actions.

When setting up policies, be sure you set them to individual groups. If necessary, create a custom group for the settings you want to apply.

When using the Firefox browser, platform diagnostics cannot be downloaded. To download diagnostics, you must use another browser.

The user interface cannot display Suspend actions for storage unless you make the following action mode settings for storage:

— Delete set to Manual

— Terminate set to Recommend

— Suspend set to Recommend

After executing Settings : Maintenance Options : Export Current Environment, the user interface sometimes shows that the export failed even though the export is still running successfully.

If you are exporting a large topology, the user interface response can time out and show this warning after 60 seconds, even though the export continues to run.

If you experience this situation, restart the Workload Optimization Manager server. This restarts the HTTP server with a 10 minute timeout setting, which should be sufficient to export most environments. If the problem persists after a restart, contact Technical Support.

Storage Suspend actions appear grouped with Delete Wasted Files actions in the Delete category of pending actions.

For example, assume you are viewing the On-Prem Overview on the Home Page, and the Pending Actions chart does not list Suspend Storage actions. However, if you hover on the Storage tier of the Supply Chain, the tooltip shows that you have actions to execute on Storage. These actions would be to suspend storage.

When viewing the overview, it is always a good idea to hover on any tier of the Supply Chain that is not completely green. The tooltip gives you extra information about that tier, including a count of actions.

To see the specific storage actions, click the Storage tier in the Supply Chain, and then view the Actions list.

When running a Replace Workload plan to replace certain VMs with a template, under some circumstances the plan replaces the VM with a copy of an existing VM. For this reason, you should not configure a Replace Workload plan.

To get the same effect as a Replace Workload plan, you should configure the plan to remove the VMs you want to replace, and then configure it to add instances of a template or VM copy. For example, remove three VMs, and then add three instances of a VM template.

For Load Balancer entities, the Transactions Per Second data can be incomplete.

When setting up a custom plan, the user interface allows you to set a scope that includes public cloud entities. If you run such a custom plan, you can see unexpected or incorrect plan results. You should not set a scope that contains public cloud entities.

To run plans for the public cloud, choose the Migrate to Public Cloud or the Optimize Cloud plan type.

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In order to add an ACI Target, your Workload Optimization Manager instance must be using Market 1, which is disabled by default. If you require ACI Integration, please contact Workload Optimization Manager Technical Support.

In AWS environments, a Reserved Instance (RI) can be associated with a region or an availability zone. For RIs associated with zones, the Workload Optimization Manager scale actions assume reservations are regional. As a result, actions may resize a VM based on its reserved cost, but the VM charges will actually use the on-demand cost.

If this occurs, use the AWS console to change the scope of the RI to "regional".

In vCenter environments, you might see unusually high storage latency values or excessive recommendations to provision new storage. There is a known problem with the storage latency values that vCenter Server versions 6.5.u1x and earlier return via the API. These versions can return unusually high storage latency values.

Workload Optimization Manager considers storage latency when calculating whether to move a VM to existing storage, or whether to provision new storage. Because of this known problem, Workload Optimization Manager can incorrectly recommend provisioning storage when moves are appropriate.

If you encounter this problem, then you should create a policy that disables storage moves for VMs that are managed by vCenter Server versions 6.5.u1x and earlier. To create this policy:

— Create a VM group that contains all the affected VMs. Note that Workload Optimization Manager automatically creates a group named VMs_vCenter that you might be able to use.

— Create a new VM automation policy. This policy will disable storage move actions.

— Set the group that you created to be the policy scope.

— Under Action Automation add the Storage Move action and set it to Disabled.

In cases where actions recommend that you suspend hosts, the Optimal Improvements chart can show utilization on the remaining hosts as though the hosts to suspend are still active. The result is incorrectly low values for utilization on the hosts in the After Plan section of the chart.

When working with templates in the JSON API, the field names for some of the input DTO fields do not match the corresponding field names in the template output DTO.

Workload Optimization Manager can automate resize actions for datastores. However after executing the action, the hypervisor that is stitched to the datastore requires a refresh before it can recognize that change. Because Workload Optimization Manager uses the hypervisor to discover the datastore, then Workload Optimization Manager will not recognize the change either. As a result, Workload Optimization Manager might recommend the same action again, even though the datastore has already been resized.

To avoid this situation, Cisco suggests that you set the Action Mode for storage resize actions to be Recommend.

In action scripts, you can get the internal name of a VM and use that to assemble calls to the API that work with the given VM. However, with the JSON API you must use the VM's UUID to access it via the API call to entities. Calls that use $VMT_TARGET_NAME with the XML API must now use $VMT_TARGET_UUID.

For example, the following code creates the URL base for a call to the API that will get the actions associated with the action script's target VM:

URL="/vmturbo/rest/entities/$VMT_TARGET_UUID/actions"

Workload Optimization Manager generates special average or max utilization templates that it uses when calculating cluster headroom. You should not edit these templates, because Workload Optimization Manager will overwrite your changes the next time it generates the templates. However, the Template Catalog presents these templates as editable.

In Workload Optimization Manager you can create policies with a scope to a dynamic group. If changes in your environment remove all the members of the group for that policy, then Workload Optimization Manager deletes the policy definition.

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Workload Optimization Manager introduces a scaling constraint that you can use to exclude specific templates from move actions (VM, only) or resize actions (VMs and database instances on the cloud). For example, workload resizing in the cloud changes the template that defines the workload. To constrain resize actions for a scope of workloads, you can exclude certain templates for that scope.

In Azure environments, when you set policies to exclude templates for resize actions on Database Instances, the template exclusion initially fails. If this occurs, you can force Workload Optimization Manager to recalculate actions, and those actions will then recognize your template settings. To do this, change the action mode for an action in this policy, and apply that change. Then reset the action mode to its original value and apply it again.

To ensure that Workload Optimization Manager recommends the most appropriate actions for AWS environments, you must make specific settings for default policies in your Workload Optimization Manager installation. After adding an AWS target, then perform these steps:

— Click Settings: Policies to navigate to the Policy Management page.

— Ensure datastore browsing is enabled for the Storage Defaults policy.

Find the Storage Defaults policy and make sure that the option for Disable Datastore Browsing is OFF.

When running plans to migrate workload to the cloud, be sure to choose the Migrate to Cloud option, and do not use the Workload Migration option. If you use Workload Migration, you can successfully set up a migration to the cloud, but the resulting plan might not choose the least expensive regions for workload placement.

In AWS environments, Workload Optimization Manager discovers data from a given AMI to determine the OS of an associated VM. The OS influences cost calculations.

If you delete the AMI from your environment, then Workload Optimization Manager cannot discover the OS, and so it assumes a free Linux OS. This can result in incorrect calculations of cost in plans and in evaluations of real-time costs.

After restarting the Workload Optimization Manager server, users must log into new sessions in order to continue using the user interface or the API.

For Migrate to Cloud plans, when you migrate a VM that has an attached ISO image, the plan shows a move of a non-existent 0GB disk. This 0GB disk is a representation of the ISO image, and you can ignore the move action. The other plan actions for the VM are correct.

For Tomcat, SQLServer, WebSphere, and other application or database targets that use a scope to identify target instances, Workload Optimization Manager can fail to validate or discover the targets. If you add a target via scope, and that scope does not have any VMs to host the target applications, then the target will not validate. If you later add hosts for the applications to that scope, Workload Optimization Manager does not dynamically recognize the change and then validate and discover. Even if you execute a Validate command for that target, Workload Optimization Manager can validate but it will not run discovery.

To avoid this problem, make sure your applications are running on hosts before you configure the target. If you have encountered this problem (you added hosts to a scope after configuring the target), delete the target from Workload Optimization Manager and set a new target with this scope.

When you set up action orchestration in an Automation Policy, you should be sure that the scope is for this policy does not include conflicts with individual entities. If a single entity is in two scopes, and one scope enables orchestration while the other scope does not, then Workload Optimization Manager arbitrarily chooses either orchestration or a Workload Optimization Manager action mode.

For example, assume two groups - GroupA and GroupB, and assume a host named MyHost is in both groups. If you configure action orchestration for hosts in GroupA but you do not for hosts in GroupB, then you cannot be sure that Workload Optimization Manager will call the action orchestrator for actions on MyHost.

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Assume you have application or database servers as targets, and they use dynamic groups to define their scopes for monitoring. If you add new application or database servers to these dynamic groups, or if you shut down and then restart an existing server, then Workload Optimization Manager fails to discover the change and these servers will not appear in the user interface. To resolve this problem, execute a manual rediscovery of the affected target.

Under some circumstances Workload Optimization Manager can recommend different actions in real-time analysis and in plans. These differences can be for move actions in on-prem environments, and move or resize actions on the public cloud.

If you see differences in these recommendations for plans vs. real-time analysis, check the VM Storage Move action modes and VM Host Move action modes for the affected scope. These action modes can be set to enable shared-nothing migration. Try disabling shared-nothing for on-prem, or enabling it for cloud. For more information about Shared-Nothing Migrations, see Introducing Workload Optimization Manager: Workload Optimization Manager Actions : Shared-Nothing Migration Actions in the User Guide.

For WebSphere, Tomcat, and SQLServer targets, you can set a scaling policy to be horizontal or vertical. To set scaling for these targets, you must set it both in the Workload Optimization Manager user interface, and also in the properties file for the given probe. This means that for any of these targets, all discovered entities must use the same scaling property. For help with scaling policies for these targets, contact Technical Support.

Under some circumstances when using the Deploy View, the user interface can fail to respond. After you request a placement, if the placement recommendation does not appear within one to two minutes, reload the browser running Workload Optimization Manager to reset the user interface.

Assume you set up a scope that is less than a full datacenter. If you ignore hyperthreading in that scope and then restart tomcat for the Workload Optimization Manager application, then Workload Optimization Manager does not calculate the CPU capacity correctly for the affected scope of hosts.

If this problem occurs, perform a full rediscovery to show correct CPU capacity.

When you reserve resources for VMs that you will deploy in the future, Workload Optimization Manager initially calculates these reserved resources as CPU Provisioned, Memory Provisioned, and Storage Provisioned. However, these resources ultimately revert back to values that do not include the reserved VMs.

There is a rare case where Workload Optimization Manager can lose the cluster relationship for VMs running on a host. Assume you move a host out of a cluster, and directly into the datacenter (not into a cluster). Next you create a new cluster and then move the host into that cluster. In this case, the VMs on that host will not belong to any PM cluster. This can also affect Provider Virtual Datacenters that belong to the new cluster.

To avoid this problem, create the cluster first, and move the host directly into it. If this problem occurs, rediscover your environment to establish the correct cluster relationships.

For VMs running on Hyper-V, if you set a VCPU limit (limit VCPU to less than 100%), then the VCPU utilization data that VM returns to Workload Optimization Manager is not correct. As a result, Workload Optimization Manager will not recommend that you increase the VCPU limit.

In OpenStack environments, it is possible to place a VM belonging to a specific cluster (a VM flavor that is set via extra specifications) onto a host that is not a member of that cluster. Workload Optimization Manager cannot identify this configuration error, and will not recommend a move to place the VM on an appropriate host.

You can implement placement policies to ensure that VMs always get placed on the correct hosts. This can work even if there is no host cluster to match the VM flavor. However, in that case the user interface will not show these VMs as members of a PM cluster.

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