Estimating the cost of migrating servers to the public cloud

Use the migration simulation to evaluate the opportunity and cost effectiveness of migrating servers (compute resources or VMs) that are hosted in your on-premises infrastructure to a public cloud or from one public cloud to another. The simulation results enable you to quickly determine the projected cost of using the public cloud and compare the cost with that of your on-premises infrastructure. 

You can simulate the migration of selected servers (from the Servers page) or all servers that a business service uses (from the Business services page). For every server to be migrated, you can view the optimized recommendations for instance sizes and other associated characteristics on the public cloud. You can modify these characteristics and evaluate the impact of the change on the overall migration cost.

You can simulate migration to the following public cloud providers:

• AWS (PAY-AS-YOU-GO and AWS Government subscriptions)
• Azure (PAY-AS-YOU-GO and Azure Government subscriptions)
• Google Cloud (PAY-AS-YOU-GO subscriptions)
• IBM Cloud (PAY-AS-YOU-GO subscriptions)

The simulation algorithm uses one of the following strategies:

• Utilization-based migration: Resource utilization of the servers to be migrated is measured and analyzed to suggest the best or ideal resized instance types on the public clouds. This is the default strategy.
• Lift-and-Shift: Servers are replicated or re-hosted on the target public cloud without any redesigning.
  For more information about the strategies, see Strategies for Migration Simulation. 

The migration simulation considers a month of 30 days to estimate the migration costs.

The migration simulation feature enables you to achieve the following goals:

• Compare the on-premises and public cloud costs for the same set of servers.
• Evaluate the estimated monthly cost of migrating to the public cloud.
• Evaluate the estimated monthly cost of migrating servers to a different cloud vendor. 
• Evaluate the characteristics of the proposed or recommended instances on the public cloud.
• Customize or modify the characteristics of the proposed instances and evaluate the impact on the migration cost.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the administrator has completed the following tasks:

• Installed Migration Simulation
• Granted you necessary access to Migration Simulation
• Configured the required migration simulation settings

To estimate the cost of migrating servers to the public clouds

Perform the following tasks: 

Task 1. Initiate the migration simulation

Task 2. Evaluate the simulation results

Task 3. Customize the proposed server characteristics as per your requirement and re-evaluate the migration costs and other updated values

Task 4. Save a copy of the simulation results for offline use 

Task 1. Initiate the migration simulation

You can simulate migration of selected servers from the Servers page, or all servers in a business service. By default, you can migrate 1000 servers in one attempt. If the number of servers to be migrated exceeds this limit, only the first 1000 servers are migrated. 

Depending on how you want to initiate the migration simulation, select a tab and complete the steps:

To migrate servers

1. In the navigation pane of the Views tab, select Migration Simulation, and click the Servers tab.

2. Review the details of all servers. 
   
   
   
   

   Column	Description	Associated metric or indicator
   Server	Name of the server.	Not applicable
   Provider	Cloud provider that hosts the resources that are assigned to the server or On-premises.	Not applicable
   System Type	System type used for the server. For example, Virtual machine - VMware (for On-premises) and Virtual machine - AWS (for AWS).	Not applicable
   Instance Type	A specification that defines the resources (CPU, memory, and storage) for an instance. For example. m1.small, m1.large. Note: This column is empty for the on-premises servers.	Not applicable
   Operating System	Operating system installed on the server.	OS_TYPE
   #CPU	Total number of CPU cores that are assigned to the server.	CPU_NUM
   CPU Util [%]	Percentage of total CPU capacity that is utilized by the server. This value enables you to determine whether the server is optimally utilizing the assigned CPU or not.	IND_CPU_DEMAND (with Aggressive subresource)*
   Memory [GB]	Total amount of memory allocated to the server.	TOTAL_REAL_MEM
   Memory Util [%]	Percentage of active memory used by the server.  This value enables you to determine whether the server is optimally utilizing the assigned memory or not.	IND_MEMORY_DEMAND*
   Storage [GB]	Total amount of storage that is allocated to the file system of the server. Information For AWS, the value is a sum of all the EBS volumes that are attached to the server and the instance storage (if available).	TOTAL_FS_SIZE, else TOTAL_DSTORE_SIZE For AWS: DISK_SIZE + SUM(ST_VOLUME_SIZE) of attached volumes For IBM: SUM(BYDISK_SIZE) + SUM(ST_VOLUME_SIZE)
   Storage Used [%]	Percentage of the total storage space that is utilized by the file system. This value enables you to determine whether the server is optimally utilizing the assigned disk capacity or not.	IND_STORAGE_DEMAND*

   ^*For details on the indicators used for metric computations in this view, see Indicators.

3. From the list of the servers, select the servers that you want to migrate. You can use the domain filter to filter out servers so that you have a shorter list of servers to select from.
   You can select either on-premises servers, servers from a particular cloud provider, servers from different cloud providers, or mix of all.

4. Click Simulate Migration.

5. Click Apply.
   The Simulate migration for # servers page opens, where # is the number of servers that you selected in the earlier step. 
   By default, the cloud provider with the lowest projected cost of migrated servers is selected.
   

To migrate a complete business service to the cloud, including all its servers

1. In the navigation pane of the Views tab, select Migration Simulation, and click the Business Services tab.

2. Review the details of business services. 
   
   

   Column	Description
   Name	Name of the business service that uses the resources of the cloud provider.
   Number of Instances	Number of active or running instances of resources that are assigned to the business service.
   Provider	Cloud provider that hosts the resources that are assigned to the business service. A business service might have resources provisioned on more than one cloud provider.

3. From the list of the business services, select the business service that you want to migrate. You can select one business service only.

4. Click Simulate Migration.
   The Simulate migration for service: <Business service> page opens, where <Business service> is the name of the selected business service.
   By default, the cloud provider with the lowest projected cost of migrated servers is selected.

Task 2. 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. 
   

   Label	Description
   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 Azure: Azure Reserved Instances Pricing Google Cloud: Google Cloud Virtual Machines Pricing for the predefined machine types (custom machine types are not supported). IBM Cloud: IBM Cloud Virtual Servers Pricing 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.
   C	Net percentage increase or decrease in cost after migration. This estimated value indicates whether the migration is cost-effective or not.
   D	Suggested 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: Color Resource utilization threshold range CPU Memory Storage Green Below 75% Below 80% Below 85% Yellow Between 75% and 85% Between 80% and 90% Between 85% and 95% Red Above 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.  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 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.
   G	Additional 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 characteristic	Description
   Instance Size	Configuration of the instance or server. For example, 1 CPU, 2 GB Mem.
   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: Icon Accuracy 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. For more information about the accuracy levels, see Accuracy levels of Migration Simulation.

   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 3. 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/Field	Description
   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.
   Operating System	Modify 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 AWS The Storage type field shows a list of the Amazon EBS volume types. For more information, see Amazon EBS Volume Types . 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 Azure The Storage Type field shows a list of the Azure Virtual Machine Disk Storage types. For more information, see Azure Storage . 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 Google Cloud The Storage Type field shows a list of the Google Cloud storage options . 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 IBM Cloud The Storage type field shows a list of the IBM Cloud virtual server storage options . The following storage options are supported: SAN iSCSI

3. To save your changes, click Apply. 
   The total migration cost estimates for the corresponding cloud provider is updated.

Task 4. Save a copy of the simulation results for offline use 

Click Export and select Export to PDF or Export to Excel. 

Example

Cloud to cloud migration scenarios

Along with the scenario of migrating servers that are hosted in your on-premises infrastructure to the public cloud providers, the following migration scenarios are also supported: