Indicators
Indicators are computed metrics. They provide an indication of how a system is performing from the capacity and forecasting perspective. They are derived information and not measurements. With indicators, you can get additional insight into the status of the managed entity. Indicators are used individually (For example, in capacity views) or as part of Optimizer rules to compute recommendations.
Indicators are computed using fresh data imported into BMC Helix Continuous Optimization. Some indicators are computed for three time periods, namely last 1, 7, and 30 days. Others are computed only for last 30 days.
Some indicators are configurable. You can configure the indicator parameters and thresholds from the Indicators page in the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization (Click Administration > OPTIMIZER > Thresholds > Indicators). For more information, see Configuring and managing thresholds for metrics and indicators.
The following table lists and describes the indicators.
UOM: unit of measurement
All = VMware, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Hyper-V, KVM, Xenserver, Kubernetes, Standalone systems
Indicator | Description | UOM | Supported cloud provider/technology | ||||||||||||
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Bottleneck Resource (IND_BNECK_RESOURCE) | A resource that is currently limiting the system. This indicator is evaluated as the minimum value of available days to saturation. Possible values: CPU, MEMORY, STORAGE, or MANY (more than one resource is saturated). | - | VMware - Virtual Cluster | ||||||||||||
Composite Memory Consumption (IND_COMPOSITE_MEMORY_CONSUMPTION) | An estimate of the amount of memory that is effectively in use in the system. The consumed memory is too high, while the 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 system. It considers both Active and Consumed memory numbers reported by vSphere, and adjusts these numbers using memory pressure due to contention, as measured by swapping, ballooning, and the total memory overcommitment in the system. This indicator is based on the Memory Pressure Index indicator. You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
| Bytes | VMware: Virtual Cluster, Virtual Host, Capacity Pool | ||||||||||||
Composite Memory Utilization % (IND_COMPOSITE_MEMORY_UTILIZATION) | An estimate (in percentage) of the amount of memory that is effectively in use in the system. It is a percentage calculated by using the value in the Composite Memory Consumption (IND_COMPOSITE_MEMORY_CONSUMPTION) indicator over the total memory of the system. | PCT | VMware: Virtual Cluster, Virtual Host, Capacity Pool | ||||||||||||
CPU Demand (IND_CPU_DEMAND) | An estimate of the CPU demand that is based on number of CPU cores used by the VM in the last 30 days. This indicator has three subresources: Aggressive, Balanced, and Conservative. These subresources are computed based on the following metrics:
This indicator is used to determine whether the VM is overallocated for CPU. | CPU |
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CPU Density (IND_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.
Example: For a virtual cluster with 8 cores and 36 vCPUs, CPU density = 36 / 8 = 4.5. | QTY |
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CPU Pressure Index (IND_CPU_PRESSURE) | An index between 0 and 100 that is calculated by using CPU utilization and other CPU based metrics (such as CPU_READY, CPU_QUEUE_LENGTH, and so on). Higher the value, higher the pressure. For more information, see Computation details for VMware metrics. You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
| QTY |
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CPU Size (IND_CPU_SIZE) | The total size (processing capacity) of the physical CPU core configured for the VM, measured in MHz per CPU fractions. | MHz/CPU fractions | All | ||||||||||||
CPU Used (IND_CPU_USED) | The total CPU (processing) capacity utilized by the VM, measured in MHz per CPU fractions. | MHz/CPU fractions | All | ||||||||||||
Days Idle (IND_DAYS_IDLE) | The number of days for which a VM has been idle in the last 90 days. A VM is considered idle if it is powered on, and if its CPU utilization, network rate, and disk rate values are less than their corresponding thresholds. This indicator has three subresources: Idle_time, Powered_On_Time, and Powered_Off_Time. These subresources are computed based on the following metrics:
You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
This indicator is used to generate the Idle VM recommendation. | Days |
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Days to Saturation (IND_DAYS_TO_SATURATION) | The estimated number of days before the CPU, memory, and storage resources achieve the configured threshold. A certain amount of historical data is required to provide accurate Days to Saturation values. By default, the last 30 days of historical data is used for forecasting saturation and the minimum 5 days of data is required to calculate the utilization trend of resources. You can modify these settings on the indicators page in the Administration > Optimizer section. The following values are displayed for the Days to Saturation (DTS) indicator in the Workspace and Views tabs:
Note: If a system is marked as saturated in the last 30 days, the alert remains active until this period is over, though the system turns not saturated during this period. For example, if the system was marked as saturated 25 days back, the system will still be displayed as saturated for the next 4 days. Configurable parameters for DTS:
The warning thresholds are based on the following metrics:
| Days | All | ||||||||||||
Efficiency Score (IND_EFFICIENCY_SCORE) | Indicates the overall efficiency of the entity, produced by combining the efficiency of CPU, memory, and storage resources. Under-used resources, Idle VMs, and old snapshots are considered as the inefficient use of resources. | QTY |
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Reserved Instance Eligible Hours (IND_ELIGIBLE_HOURS_RESERVEDINSTANCE) | The total number of compute hours in a region that is considered 'enough' or that qualifies to be reserved. The eligible hours value is calculated for all instances in a region, per instance type, per operating system. This indicator is used to generate the AWS reserved instance recommendation. | Hours | AWS - Virtual Machine | ||||||||||||
Memory Spare (IND_MEM_SPARE1) | Amount of spare memory available from the total size of physical memory configured for the VM.
where, TOTAL_REAL_MEM data is taken from the VM and the MEM_USED and MEM_REAL_USED data is taken from the Virtual Node. | Bytes | VMware - Virtual Machine | ||||||||||||
Memory Demand (IND_MEMORY_DEMAND) | An estimate of the memory demand that is based on memory utilization of the VM in the last 30 days. This indicator is used to determine whether the VM is overallocated for memory.
You can configure the vSphere VM Active Memory increase factor threshold for this indicator.
| Bytes |
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Memory Size (IND_MEM_SIZE) | The total size of physical memory configured for the VM, measured in BYTES. | Bytes | All | ||||||||||||
Memory Used (IND_MEM_USED) | The total amount of physical memory utilized by the VM, measured in BYTES. | Bytes | All | ||||||||||||
Memory Pressure Index (IND_MEMORY_PRESSURE) | An index between 0 and 100 that takes ino account memory usage and contention, and provides a realistic picture of the memory pressure of a given system. This indicator is used to compute the Composite Memory Consumption (IND_COMPOSITE_MEMORY_CONSUMPTION) and Composite Memory Utilization % (IND_COMPOSITE_MEMORY_UTILIZATION) indicators. For more information, see Computation details for VMware metrics. You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
| QTY |
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Oversubscription (IND_OVERSUBSCRIPTION) | This indicator can be classified into the following types:
are calculated on the current day's (today) values. | QTY | VMware: Virtual Cluster, Virtual Host | ||||||||||||
Risk Score (IND_RISK_SCORE) | Indicates the overall risk of the entity, produced by combining key capacity and performance metrics using a proprietary formula. Metrics from CPU, memory, storage are taken into account. The highest risk is assigned as the overall risk value. In cases where the risk score is aggregated from the child entities, the highest risk is assigned as the overall risk value. | QTY |
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Spare VMs (IND_SPARE_VM) | An estimate of the additional VMs that can be added to a cluster based on a typical VM configuration. Using this estimate, you can identify the clusters with residual or spare capacity. You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
| QTY |
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Storage Demand (IND_STORAGE_DEMAND) | An estimate of the storage demand that is based on storage utilization (TOTAL_FS_UTIL[pctile95] or TOTAL_FS_USED[pctile95] metric) of the VM in the last 30 days. This indicator is used to determine whether the VM is overallocated for storage. | Bytes |
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Storage Size (IND_STORAGE_SIZE) | The total amount of physical disk storage configured or available for the VM, measured in BYTES. | Bytes | All | ||||||||||||
Storage Pressure Index (IND_STORAGE_PRESSURE) | An index between 0 and 100 that takes into account the storage utilization and provides a realistic picture of the storage pressure of a given system. For more information, see Computation details for VMware metrics. You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
| QTY |
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Storage Used (IND_STORAGE_USED) | The total amount of physical disk storage utilized by the VM, measured in BYTES. | Bytes | All | ||||||||||||
Usage Score (IND_USAGE_SCORE) | Indicates the overall usage of the entity, produced by taking an average of the usage of the three core resources: CPU, memory and storage. In cases where the usage score is aggregated from the children entities, it is produced by taking the average of the usage of the children entities. | QTY |
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vCPU Size (IND_VCPU_SIZE) | The total number of virtual CPUs configured on or for the VM. This number includes the vCPUs that may or may not be currently in use by the VM. | CPU | All | ||||||||||||
vCPU Used (IND_VCPU_USED) | The total number of virtual CPUs currently in use by the VM. | CPU | All | ||||||||||||
Virtualization Readiness Index (IND_VIRT_READINESS) | This indicator is deprecated. Index (in percentage) that enables you to 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. Default values are:
Note: 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. You can configure the following thresholds for this indicator:
| PCT | Standalone systems |
1 - 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).
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