Evaluating the simulation results

Evaluate the simulation results and modify the proposed updates. 

The Simulator displays the estimated cost of migration for all the supported cloud providers and indicates the lowest cost. You can select the cloud provider for further evaluation. You can also save the simulation results.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have simulated the migration of selected servers or all servers that a business service uses. For more information, see Initiating the migration simulation.

Task 1. To evaluate the simulation results

  1. Depending on the cloud provider that you want to evaluate further, click the target cloud provider name. 

    The page displays a table that lists the servers to be migrated. The table has two sections: Before and After. Values of the selected server's characteristics are displayed in the Before section and those of the proposed instance on the public cloud are displayed in the After section.

  2. Review the total migration cost estimates and characteristics of the proposed migrated instances on the public cloud. 

    LabelDescription
    A

    Estimate of the total monthly cost of the servers that you want to migrate. This cost is an estimate based on the characteristics of the servers that are selected for migration and are powered on for the entire month. Your actual monthly cost might be different.

    The cost of on-premises servers is estimated using various factors, such as costs for compute, storage, and networking. You can define these costs from the On-Premises Costs Definition page in the Settings page. For details, see Configuring the Migration Simulation settings.

    B
    Estimate of the total monthly cost of migrating to the public cloud providers. Costs for the following payment modes or billing options are provided (Left to right):
    • On-demand or pay-as-you-go
    • Full upfront yearly payment1
    • Full upfront payment for three years1

    1For the following cloud provides, the costs are calculated based on

    • AWS: AWS EC2 Reserved Instances Pricing Open link
    • Azure: Azure Reserved Instances Pricing Open link
    • Google Cloud: Google Cloud Virtual Machines Pricing Open link for the predefined machine types (custom machine types are not supported).
    • IBM Cloud: IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Pricing Open link
    • Oracle Cloud: Oracle Cloud Shapes Pricing Open link

    The simulation provides an estimate of the migration costs based on the characteristics of the selected servers. Your actual monthly costs will be based on your usage, and might vary from these estimates.

    If a provider does not have an instance type that matches the required configuration of a source server after simulating the migration, the next best available instance type is proposed. A warning symbol is displayed next to this Provider.

    CNet percentage increase or decrease in cost after migration. This estimated value indicates whether the migration is cost-effective or not.
    DSuggested region where the migrated server will reside. You can modify the region and view the impact of this change on the cost of migration. Select a region that is closer to your user base.
    E

    Configuration details of the server to be migrated are displayed in the Before section. Values for the following characteristics are displayed:
    Instance type, operating system that the instance is running, estimated cost of the server, number of CPU cores, allocated memory, and amount of storage or storage size.
    The three bar graphs depict the estimated utilization of the CPU, memory, and storage space in the last 30 days.
    If the Utilization-based strategy is applied, resource utilization is computed by considering the selected Optimization behavior. For details, see Strategies for Migration Simulation.
    If the Lift-and-shift strategy is applied, the computation of the resource utilization considers the average value of the hourly samples. Then, 95th percentile of the hourly value over the last 30 days is computed for each resource. Spikes in the resource utilization within the hour are not considered.

    The utilization bar colors are based on the following default threshold ranges:

    ColorResource utilization threshold range
    CPUMemoryStorage
    GreenBelow 75%Below 80%Below 85%
    YellowBetween 75% and 85%Between 80% and 90%Between 85% and 95%
    RedAbove 85%Above 90%Above 95%

    You can modify the thresholds from the Metric thresholds page. For details, see Configuring and managing thresholds for metrics and indicators.

    F

    Configuration details of the proposed server or instance on the public cloud are displayed in the After section. Values for the following characteristics are displayed:

    Instance type, operating system that the instance is running, estimated cost of the server, number of CPU cores, allocated memory, amount of storage or storage size, and storage type.

    info Information: The default storage type of the proposed server is as follows:

    • AWS - General Purpose
    • Azure - Unmanaged Standard - LRS
    • Google Cloud - Local SSD 
    • IBM Cloud - Block Storage
    • Oracle Cloud - Balanced

    The three bar graphs depict the estimated future utilization of CPU, memory, and storage space of the target server.

    The utilization values are computed by considering the estimated utilization of resources of the source server (as shown in the bar graphs in the Before section) and the amount of resources of the target server.

    If Utilization-based strategy is applied, computation of the CPU utilization value also considers CPU benchmarks. 

    You can modify some of the characteristics of the proposed server by clicking the Editicon that is placed next to the corresponding source server. 

    GAdditional details of the source and proposed server.
    H

    The selected migration strategy, optimization behavior, and storage allocation that are used by the simulation algorithm.

    Note: For the Lift-and-Shift strategy, the optimizer behavior is not displayed.

    For more information about the supported strategies and the optimization behaviors, see Strategies for Migration Simulation.

    You can modify the selected strategy, behavior, and storage allocation from the Settings page. For details, see Configuring the Migration Simulation settings.

  3. Review additional details of the proposed server. 
    Click the Editicon that is placed next to the corresponding source server. 
    The Simulation migration for <source server> window opens. Values of the characteristics of the source server and proposed server that are shown on the Simulation results page are displayed in this window along with additional information. 


    The following additional information is displayed for the source and target servers in the Before and After sections, respectively:

    Additional characteristicDescription
    Instance Size

    Configuration of the instance or server. For example, 1 CPU, 2 GB Mem.

    The instance size is not customizable for instances of any of the providers, except for Oracle flexible shapes.

    When Oracle target server is proposed, you can modify the instance size for the flexible shapes in the General purpose, Burstable, Compute Optimized, and General purpose ARM instance types (*.Flex shapes). 

    In Oracle Cloud, a shape determines the number of Oracle Compute Units (OCPUs) and the amount of memory allocated to an instance.

    A flexible shape allows you to modify the number of OCPUs and the amount of memory when resizing the instance.  

    On Intel and AMD processors, one OCPU is equivalent of 2 VCPUs. On the ARM processor, 1 OCPU is equivalent to 1 VCPU.

    Estimated SPECint_rate2006

    Estimated benchmark for the CPU. SPECint_rate2006 is used as the reference benchmark.

    For the target server, the information in brackets indicates whether its CPU performance is faster or slower than the source server.


    If the CPU benchmark value for the source server is unavailable, the simulation results are generated without considering benchmarks. 

    Accuracy icon

    Displayed at the top-right corner in the After section. The icon indicates the accuracy level of the recommended or proposed resized configuration of the target server.

    For Utilization-based migration strategy, the accuracy level is based on the Optimization behavior, defines the backend process of computing the utilization of the source server, which impacts the resizing suggestion.

    Information

    The following table provides the possible values of the accuracy icon:

    IconAccuracy level
    Very Low
    Low
    Medium
    High
    Very High

    The Very High accuracy level is achieved when the suggested resized VM is based on the strategy and Optimization behavior (only for Utilization-based strategy) that you selected.

    If the utilization value of any of the resources (CPU, Memory, Storage) of the proposed server exceeds its Warning threshold, a warning symbol is displayed next to the value. 

    If the ideal or best resized instance type is not available, the next best instance type that is available is suggested. And, a warning is displayed next to the Instance Type field.

Task 2. To customize the proposed server characteristics as per your requirement and re-evaluate the migration costs and other updated values

  1. Click the Editicon that is placed next to the corresponding source server for the proposed server that you want to customize, . The Simulation migration for <source server> window opens.

  2. Based on your requirement, in the After section, modify the following characteristics:

    Characteristic/FieldDescription

    Instance Type

    Modify the instance type based on the catalog of instances that is available for the selected public cloud provider. You can decide whether you want to modify the instance type by reviewing the other characteristics of the proposed server. Changes to the instance type changes the Cost value for the server and causes a change to the vCPU, memory, and Storage values, and changes to the storage type updates the storage value. As a result, the corresponding utilization values are re-computed and the CPU Util, Memory Util, and Storage Util values are updated.  For example, consider that the Lift-and-shift strategy is applied and the proposed AWS instance type is c4.8xlarge. The CPU Util shows 10%, Memory Util shows 50%, and Disk Util shows 12%. These values indicate that the target server is oversized and underutilized, and hence, you might want to select an instance type with a smaller configuration.

    When you select the Oracle flexible shapes in the General purpose, Burstable, Compute Optimized, and General purpose ARM instance types (*.Flex shapes), you can also modify the instance size. The instance size is not customizable for other Oracle shapes, such as Standard or GPU shapes. 

    Operating SystemModify the default operating system that is running on the proposed server.
    Storage Type and Storage

    Specify the amount of storage that you need to buy for the proposed server.

    To do so, select a storage type from the predefined list and specify the storage value.

    Expand the following sections for specific points and steps per the public cloud provider:

    AWS

    The Storage type field shows a list of the Amazon EBS volume types. For more information, see Amazon EBS Volume Types Open link .
    Some instance types have default instance storage associated with them (shown as Ephemeral/Temporary Storage). You can specify additional storage to be allocated to your server in the Storage field.
    For the Provisioned IOPs and Magnetic storage types, you need to specify the Daily IOPs value too because the computation of storage for this type is based on both the storage value and the daily number of I/O operations made per second to your volume.


    Azure

    The Storage Type field shows a list of the Azure Virtual Machine Disk Storage types. For more information, see Azure Storage Open link .

    Some instance types have default instance storage associated with them (shown as Ephemeral/Temporary Storage).

    For the Unmanaged Standard storage type, you can specify the additional storage to be allocated to your instance in the Storage field.

    For the Managed and Unmanaged Standard storage types, you need to additionally specify the Transaction Units value to align it to your instance requirement as this value impacts the cost of storage. By default, the transaction units value is set to 100000.

    For the Managed and Unmanaged Premium storage types, a default amount of storage (Disk size) is associated with each storage type. If you need additional storage, you cannot directly specify the amount, but need to provide the number of disks of a specific storage type, as follows:

    a. Select a storage type.

    b. Based on the default storage value of the selected storage type and your requirement, specify the number of disks in Disk Number field.

    The value in the Storage field is automatically updated.

    For example, if the default storage for the selected storage type is 512 GB and you specify the number of disks as 2, then the Storage value will show 1024.00 (calculated as: 512 x 2).


    Google Cloud

    The Storage Type field shows a list of the Google Cloud storage options Open link . The following storage options are supported:
    • Zonal standard persistent disks: Efficient and reliable block storage
    • Zonal SSD persistent disk: Fast and reliable block storage
    • Local SSDs: High-performance local block storage

    IBM Cloud

    The Storage type field shows a list of the IBM Cloud virtual server storage options Open link . The following storage options are supported:

    • SAN
    • iSCSI

    Oracle Cloud

    The Storage type field shows a list of the Oracle Cloud shapes storage options Open link . The following storage options are supported:

    • Ultra High Performance
    • Higher Performance
    • Balanced
    • Lower Cost
  3. To save your changes, click Apply
    The total migration cost estimates for the corresponding cloud provider is updated.

Task 3. To save a copy of the simulation results for offline use 

Click Export and select Export to PDF or Export to Excel

Example

Consider the following example to migrate on-premises servers and review the simulation results.

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