Configuring migration simulation and recommendation settings

Note

When you install Cloud Cost Control, you can see all the features such as Cost Pools, Cloud Services, and Budgeting. However, you are entitled to use only the cloud migration simulation feature according to your license entitlement.

Use settings on the Cloud Cost Control page to configure the properties that impact the cloud migration simulation and out-of-the-box recommendation results.

You can use this page to specify the following settings:

  • Target cloud providers to which you want to simulate the cloud migration. For example, if your organization wants to move to AWS cloud, you can select only AWS as the target cloud provider and avoid simulating to other cloud providers. 
  • Migration simulation strategy. The following strategies are supported and you can choose one of them:
    • Utilization-based migration - Resource (CPU, memory, storage) 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-cloud-migration-simulation. 
  • Burstable instances as target servers or virtual machines (VMs). You can choose whether the target (suggested) VM in the migration simulation results page can include burstable instances or not. 
  • Optimization behavior that impacts the resizing recommendations in the Utilization-based migration simulation results and in the recommended actions of the Overallocated VM recommendation type. You can select a behavior based on how you want to compute the resource utilization of a server to suggest the ideal size of the target server or VM. You can choose to be conservative in your approach by considering the spikes in the resource utilization or be aggressive by considering the typical average utilization. You also have the option of being balanced in your approach.

To configure migration simulation and recommendation settings

Access the Optimization page.

    1. Log on to the Helix Capacity Optimization Dashboard.
    2. Expand the left navigation pane and select Cloud Cost Control. By default, Summary > Costs page is displayed. 

    3. Click the Settings icons.pngSettings icon and select Settings. 

      The Settings page is displayed. The Optimization tab is selected by default. 

Configure the settings.

    1. To select or remove the target cloud providers to which you want to simulate the cloud migration, in the Target providers section, select or clear the required cloud provider. Depending on your selection, when you initiate the migration simulation, the simulation results are displayed only for the selected cloud providers.
      By default, all cloud providers are selected. 
    2. To modify the migration simulation approach, under the Strategy section, select one of the following options:
    3. If you want the migration simulation process to consider burstable instances as target virtual machines or instances, select Include burstable instances.
      By default, burstable instances are not suggested as target instances.

    4. To modify the backend process of computing the utilization of a server, select one of the following behaviors in the Optimization behavior section. The selected behavior impacts the sizing of the target server or virtual machine that is proposed by the Utilization-based simulation results and the recommended action of the Overallocated VM recommendation type.

      Optimization behavior

      Description

      Aggressive

      Resource utilization in the server is computed by considering the average value of the hourly samples. Then, 95th percentile of the hourly value over the last 30 days is computed for each resource to generate the configuration of the target virtual machine or instance type. Spikes in the resource utilization within the hour are not considered.

      This optimization behavior does not require the server to be instrumented because granular or detailed metrics are not used for the computation.

      Balanced (Default)

      CPU utilization in the server is computed by considering the 90th percentile value of hourly samples. Then, 95th percentile of the hourly value over the last 30 days is computed for CPU to generate the configuration of the target virtual machine or instance type. 90% of spikes in the CPU utilization within the hour are considered.

      Utilization of memory and storage is computed by considering the 95th percentile of the average hourly values over the last 30 days.

      This optimization behavior requires the server to be instrumented to collect the granular or detailed metrics. For VMware vSphere, the server need not be instrumented because the vSphere Service ETL collects data at less than one minute granularity.

      Conservative

      CPU utilization in the server is computed by considering the 95th percentile value of hourly samples. Then, 95th percentile of the hourly value over the last 30 days is computed for CPU to generate the configuration of the target virtual machine or instance type. 95% of spikes in the CPU utilization within the hour are considered.

      Utilization of memory and storage is computed by considering the 95th percentile of the average hourly values over the last 30 days.

      This optimization behavior requires the server to be instrumented to collect the granular or detailed metrics. For VMware vSphere, the server need not be instrumented because the vSphere Service ETL collects data at less than one minute granularity.

      The computed resource utilization values are stored in the demand indicators (CPU Demand, Memory Demand, and Storage Demand). For more information, see Indicators.

      Information

      If you select the Conservative or Balanced optimization behavior for a server that is not instrumented, the results are based on the Aggressive behavior.

      BMC recommends the Conservative behavior for servers that are running business-critical applications.

    5. To modify the threshold of a metric or an indicator, click Optimizer Thresholds. The Thresholds page in the Helix Capacity Optimization Console opens in a new browser tab or window. For more information about configuring the thresholds, see Configuring-and-managing-thresholds-for-metrics-and-indicators.
  2. Click Save.

If you modified the settings under the Optimization Behavior section, all the Optimizer rules that are defined with the following template group are initiated to run:

  • Cloud
  • VMWare Virtualization
  • Hyper-V Virtualization

For more information, see Configuring-and-managing-thresholds-for-metrics-and-indicators.



 

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