Indicators
Indicators are computed KPIs based on built-in rules, that provide an indication about how a system is performing from the capacity and forecast perspective
For more information on indicators, see:
Overview
An Indicator is derived information, and not a measurement, that provides additional insight into the status of the managed entity. Indicators are computed internally in the Auto Forecasting Service (AFS) component of TrueSight Capacity Optimization using a formula that uses measured metrics. Indicators are also used as a way or means to track multiple metrics using a single value.
The methodology used for computation is key to understand the purpose of an indicator. For example, the IND_DAYS_TO_SATURATION indicator provides a forecast about when a particular system is expected to saturate, and IND_VIRT_READINESS tells you the Virtualization Readiness Index of VMs in a view.
Indicators are automatically computed by the AFS without user intervention and are used by Resource Monitor Rules to compute Recommendations. In particular, the Near Real Time - Warehousing (NRT-WH) service notifies the AFS of the presence of new incoming data, and the Indicators are updated.
You can change the settings for some indicators in the Indicator Parameters page (Administration > RESOURCE MONITOR > Indicator Parameters). For more information, see Indicator parameters.
Note
You can change settings only for specific indicators.
Indicators are computed using fresh data imported to TrueSight Capacity Optimization. Some indicators are computed for three timeperiods, namely last1, 7 and 30 days. Others are computed only for last 30 days.
Data requirement for indicator computation
- Last 1 day indicators are computed only if data is available for yesterday.
- Last 7 days indicators are computed if data is available within the last seven days.
- Last 30 days indicators are available if data is available within the last thirty days.
In situations where fresh data is not available for the three time periods, the following retention periods are applied:
- Last 1 day indicators are retained in the database for an extra day.
- Last 7 days indicators are retained in the database for three extra days.
- Last 30 days indicators are retained in the database for five extra days.
Indicators are not computed for imported historical data that is older than thirty days.
Indicators computed by the AFS
The table below lists and describes the following Indicators that assist the AFS in providing Recommendations for a vSphere view:
UOM: unit of measurement
Supported platforms: VMware, AIX,
Indicators computed by AFS
| Indicator ↓ | Description ↓ | Supported platform |
|---|---|---|
IND_MEM_SPARE* | Amount of spare memory available from the total size of physical memory configured for the VM.
Where, TOTAL_REAL_MEMdata is taken from the Virtual Machine and the MEM_USED and MEM_REAL_USED data is taken from the Virtual Node. | |
| UOM: BYTES | ||
IND_BNECK_RESOURCE | Bottleneck resource: A resource that is currently limiting the system. AFS evaluates this indicator as the minimum value of available days to saturation. Possible value: CPU, MEMORY, STORAGE or MANY (more than one resource is saturated). | All |
IND_CPU_DENSITY | CPU Density: The ratio of total vCPUs configured on the VM (VCPU_ON_NUM) to the total number of physical cores (CPU_NUM) in the cluster.
| Virtual Cluster - VMware
|
IND_MEMORY_PRESSURE* | Memory Pressure Index (MPI): An index between 0 and 100 that takes into account memory usage and contention, and provides a realistic picture of the memory pressure in the vSphere clusters, hosts and VMs (Windows VMs only). MPI is used to compute Composite Memory Utilization and Composite Memory Consumption. For more information, see Computation details for VMware metrics. | |
| IND_COMPOSITE_ MEMORY_UTILIZATION and IND_COMPOSITE_ MEMORY_CONSUMPTION | Composite Memory Utilization and Composite Memory Consumption: Consumed memory of a vSphere host or cluster is too high, while Active memory gives too low a picture of usage. The "composite" memory consumption is a more realistic estimate of the amount of memory that is effectively in use in the host or cluster. It considers both Active and Consumed memory numbers reported by vSphere, and adjusts these using memory pressure due to contention, as measured by swapping, ballooning, and the total memory over-commitment in the host/cluster. The UTILIZATION version is a percentage calculated over the total memory of the host or cluster. By default, spare VM calculation for a cluster in the vSphere infrastructure view uses memory utilization based on Consumed memory. The vSphere view has a parameter called "Spare VM calculation" in the settings page by which you can use this Composite memory consumption instead for calculating spare VMs. | |
IND_CPU_PRESSURE | CPU Pressure Index: An index between 0 and 100, calculated using CPU utilization and CPU ready time. Higher the value, higher the pressure. This metric is calculated for vSphere hosts and clusters. For more information, see Computation details for VMware metrics. | |
IND_DAYS_IDLE | Days idle: The total number of days for which a VM has been idle. Idle VMs include VMs that have been powered off for a certain number of days and VMs that use less than a configured minimum amount of CPU. The IND_DAYS_IDLE indicator contains three sub-resources:
For information on configuring these thresholds, see Indicator Parameters. | Virtual Machine - VMware |
| UOM: DAYS | ||
IND_DAYS_TO_SATURATION | Days to saturation: The estimated number of days before the CPU, memory, and storage resources meet the configured threshold values.
For specific metrics used for CPU, MEM, and STORAGE, see Evaluation of Days to Saturation. | All |
| UOM: DAYS | ||
IND_OVERSUBSCRIPTION | Oversubscription: This indicator can be classified into the following types:
| Virtual Cluster - VMware
|
IND_BALLOONING_ | Ballooning presence count: Number of days the value of the ballooning metric was greater than a configurable minimum value in the past 30 days. You can set the Configurable minimum value using the Minimum value for the ballooning parameter from Administration > Resource Monitor > Indicator Parameters, and its default value is 1 MB. | Virtual Machine- VMware |
| UOM: DAYS | ||
IND_CPU_SIZE | CPU size: The total size (processing capacity) of the physical CPU core configured for the VM, measured in MHz per CPU fractions. | All |
| UOM: MHz/CPU fractions | ||
IND_CPU_USED | CPU used: The total CPU (processing) capacity utilized by the VM, measured again in MHz per CPU fractions. | All |
| UOM: MHz/CPU fractions | ||
IND_STORAGE_SIZE | Storage size: The total amount of physical disk storage configured or available for the VM, measured in BYTES. | All |
| UOM: BYTES | ||
IND_STORAGE_USED | Storage used: The total amount of physical disk storage utilized by the VM, measured in BYTES. | All |
| UOM: BYTES | ||
IND_VCPU_SIZE | vCPU size: The total number of virtual CPUs configured on or for the VM. This number includes the vCPUs that may or may not currently be in use by the VM. | VMware |
| UOM: # | ||
IND_VCPU_USED | vCPU used: The total number of virtual CPUs currently in use by the VM. | VMware |
| UOM: # | ||
IND_VIRT_READINESS | Virtualization Readiness Index (VRI): Helps you choose the best candidate VMs for virtualization. It is calculated using the following formula:
This formula calculates the average resource utilization for the candidate VM, and compares it with a set of reference values. Defaults for these reference values are:
The VRI value that is computed based on the preceding formula and default values lies between 0 and 1. A VRI closer to 1 signifies that the VM is a good candidate for virtualization, due to low resource utilization. A VRI of 0 does not necessarily mean that the VM cannot be virtualized, but that its virtualization should be considered carefully. | Physical systems |
| UOM: PCT | ||
IND_MEM_SIZE | Memory size: The total size of physical memory configured for the VM, measured in BYTES. | All |
| UOM: BYTES | ||
IND_MEM_USED | Memory used: The total amount of physical memory utilized by the VM, measured in BYTES. | All |
| UOM: BYTES | ||
IND_STORAGE_PRESSURE | Storage Pressure: This indicator is used as a correction for the datastore utilization to obtain the true utilization. | |
| UOM: QTY | ||
IND_USAGE_SCORE | Usage Score: Indicates the overall usage of the container pool, produced by combining the usage of CPU, Memory, Storage resources of the container pool. | |
| UOM: QTY | ||
IND_RISK_SCORE | Risk Score: Indicates the overall risk of the container pool, produced by assigning penalty points for key capacity and performance metrics of the container pool. Metrics from CPU, Memory, Storage are taken into account. | |
| UOM: QTY | ||
IND_EFFICIENCY_SCORE | Efficiency Score: Indicates the overall efficiency of the container pool, produced by combining the efficiency of CPU, Memory, Storage resources of the container pool. Under-used resources, Idle VMs, and old snapshots are considered the inefficient use of resources. | |
| UOM: QTY |
* Computed for VMs only if there is an established relationship (GM_ASSOCIATED_TO_VN) between the VM and its corresponding Virtual Node (VN). To create this relationship, rerun the Virtual Node Linker system task (Administration > ETL & SYSTEM TASKS > System tasks > Virtual Node Linker).
Evaluation of Days to Saturation
The following table lists the metrics that evaluate the Days to Saturation parameter for the vSphere platform. The calculations use absolute values and not percentage metrics.
| Metric ↓ | Calculation ↓ |
|---|---|
| CPUUSED |
(CPU_UTIL * CPU_TOTAL_MHZ) |
| CPUSIZE |
(CPU_MHZ * CPU_NUM) |
| MEMUSED |
(MEM_UTIL * TOTAL_REAL_MEM) |
| MEM SIZE | TOTAL_REAL_MEM |
| DISKUSED |
(TOTAL_DSTORE_SIZE * TOTAL_DSTORE_UTIL)
(TOTAL_FS_SIZE * TOTAL_FS_UTIL) |
| DISK SIZE | TOTAL_DSTORE_SIZE |
Setting global Indicator Parameters in the console
Indicator parameters are named values associated with systems or business drivers and are automatically computed by the auto forecasting service. These values are ultimately derived from BMC TrueSight Capacity Optimization metrics. Use this screen to configure definition parameters for indicators.
For more information, see Indicator Parameters.
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