Creating a What-if simulation for business services and viewing the simulation results

Use the What-if simulation to predict the behavior and analyze the capacity of resources for a business service based on the associated business drivers. Simulate different growth scenarios of business drivers for a future date in the forecast period, and use the simulation results to identify the bottlenecks and capacity issues in the business service. Based on the business driver supported growth, you can resize the infrastructure of the business service to remediate a saturation risk. 

The following image provides a high-level overview of the What-if simulation workflow:

Before you begin

Make sure that the administrator has completed the following tasks:

• Completed all prerequisites tasks to access and view data in the Business Services view. For more information, see Analyzing business services.
• Configured the required What-if simulation settings in the Business Services view Settings page. For more information, see Configuring the business services view settings.

To create a What-if simulation 

1. From the navigation pane of the Views tab, select Views > Business Services. The Business Service Overview page displays all the business services. 
2. In the overview panel, click <number> Business Services link to open the Business Services summary page. 
3. In the Business Services page, select the business service for which you want to predict the growth. The Business Service Details page is displayed. 

4. Click What-if simulation.
   

   Can I run a What-if simulation for any business service?

   No. If there are no business drivers associated with the business service, the What-if simulation option is disabled.  

The forecast is generated based on the actual data in the time series. The results help you plan the addition of resources on time. 

To view the simulation results 

To view the status of each business driver

The Business Driver table shows the following information for each business driver. 

To set the expected growth for the business driver

Simulate different growth scenarios for the business drivers for a future date in the forecast period, and use the simulation results to identify the bottlenecks and capacity issues in the business service. You can also enable or disable to use the projected growth values.

To set the expected growth:

1. In the last column of the Business Drivers table, click Edit. 
2. Review the current growth trend of the business driver in the chart.
   Select Apply Growth Projection to use the projected growth values of the business driver resources as a baseline to evaluate the expected growth, else latest measured values is used. 
   
   
3. To add the growth event, provide the following values:
   1. Name of the growth.
   2. Enter the start date on which the growth is expected and an optional end date. 
   3. Enter the expected target growth value or growth percentage that you want to achieve 
   4. Enter the growth percentage and dates on which the growth is expected to start and end. You can add multiple growths.
      The chart renders and displays the expected growth. 
      When you hover your mouse in the chart, values for the data points are displayed in the data tips. To print the chart, or to download it in different formats, click Export.
      
4. Click Ok.

The added growth event is displayed in the Growth Events column and on the timeline. 

To view current and resized hardware configuration of resources

The Resources table displays the hardware configuration of systems in the infrastructure that hosts the selected business service. In case of recommended or manual resizing, the table displays a summary of all resized resources for which the simulation is generated. 

By default, some columns are hidden. Click Visible columns and select the columns that you want to display. 

To view the details of Infrastructure

The Infrastructure table shows the following information for each system in the infrastructure that hosts the selected business service. By default, some columns are hidden. Click Visible columns and select the columns that you want to display. 

To view charts for resource usage in a pool

To view the details of resource utilization for the selected forecasting period, click the icon () in the first column of the infrastructure table. 

The position, color of the lines in the chart indicate the status of the resources. View the chart and identify when the resource is nearing saturation. After you identify the problem, you can drill down into details, analyze it further, and take necessary actions.

When you hover your mouse in the chart, values for the data points are displayed in the data tips. To print the chart, or to download it in different formats, click Export.

To resize the infrastructure and avoid the risk of saturation

Based on the expected growth of business drivers, you can apply recommended resizing (automatically suggested by BMC Helix Continuous Optimization) or custom resizing (manual) requests to your simulation. After you click Apply changes, the timeline indicates the updated changes. Notice that the saturation is moved to a later date or it is avoided. Also, the resizing requests are displayed on the timeline as a blue icon. 

Recommended resizing

For a business service that is saturated or nearing saturation, BMC Helix Continuous Optimization suggests recommendations to scale your pools based on the historical values of the business service for the selected forecasting period.

Depending on the resizing strategy configured in the Settings page, either resizing of pods (scale-out) or resizing of resources (scale-up resizing) is suggested. 

You need to select the required recommended resizing request and click Apply changes to rerun the forecast and view updated changes on the timeline. No recommended resizing is suggested when sufficient historical values are not available. 

Custom resizing

Based on your business needs, you can manually scale your pools by adding more servers (vertical scaling) or by adding CPU, memory, or storage resources (horizontal scaling) to avoid the risk of saturation. For example, if the resources will be saturated in September, you can add resources before the date of saturation and simulate the growth.

To scale your pool:

1. Click Add Resize. You can view how many servers, CPU, memory, and storage resources are active. 
2. Select the pool for which you want to change the resources. For a selected pool, you can use either add additional servers or add CPU, memory, and storage resources to a single server.
   
   • The Scale-out section displays the current servers in the selected pool.
     1. Enter the number of servers to add to the pool.
     2. Select a date on which to add new servers to the pool.
   • The Scale-up section displays the current requested CPU, memory, and storage in a single server instance.
     1. Enter the additional CPU, memory, or storage resources that you want to request. 
     2. Select a date on which to add the resources.
3. Click OK.

After scaling the pool, you need to apply the changes for the forecast to rerun. Notice that the saturation is moved to a later date or it is avoided. 

If your pool is Kubernetes deployment and not a service pool, you can scale the deployment by adding pods (vertical scaling) or by adding CPU or memory resources (horizontal scaling). 

After resizing the pool, click Apply changes to rerun the forecast. 

To save a What-if Simulation

If you are satisfied with the results of the What-if Simulation, you can save and use it for future reference.