2021 enhancements
December 30, 2021
Golden model results template for custom views
The Golden model results template displays charts that are generated from the last run of a Golden model. For more information, see Configuring-the-Golden-model-results-template.
Automatic selection of the extrapolation algorithm
The Automatic option in the extrapolation model scenario identifies the specific regression algorithm that achieves the best performance in calculating the trendline. For more information, see Adding-an-extrapolation-model-scenario.
Migrate data marts and custom views from TrueSight Capacity Optimization
Use the Migration toolkit to migrate the SQL and Summary data marts and custom views from TrueSight Capacity Optimization. For more information, see Key-considerations-for-migration.
November 19, 2021
System time forecasting template for custom views
Use the System time forecasting template to display charts that are generated from the last run of a time forecasting model. For more information, see Configuring-the-System-time-forecasting-template.
Migrate results from the TrueSight Capacity Optimization basic reports
Use the Migration toolkit to migrate the results of basic reports that are created in TrueSight Capacity Optimization. For more information, see Key-considerations-for-migration.
October 22, 2021
Tree map template for custom views
Use the Tree map template to display data in a hierarchical structure, as a set of nested rectangles. For more information, see Configuring-the-Tree-Map-template.
The following video (3:41) demonstrates how to configure a custom view by using a Tree map template:
Capacity Pools view
View the capacity utilization of aggregated entities based on different criteria in a single view. Visualize the key capacity usage, risk, and efficiency indicators that are associated with Capacity Pools. For more information, see Capacity-Pools-view.
vCloud view
Analyze and manage the capacity of CPU, memory, and datastore utilization of vCloud, Provider vDCs, and Organization vDCs. For more information, see vCloud-view.
Migrate reports from TrueSight Capacity Optimization
Use the Migration toolkit to migrate basic reports from TrueSight Capacity Optimization. For more information, see Key-considerations-for-migration.
September 21, 2021
The following video (3:25) provides a summary of some of the new features in this release:
Queuing network models
Use the Queuing network models to estimate service performance against changes in business driver volumes or infrastructure configuration. They can predict system utilization, throughput, queue length, and response time based on the impact of changes to the business drivers that are running on the systems. For more information, see Working-with-queuing-network-models.
Migration toolkit
Use the out-of-the-box migration toolkit to migrate data from TrueSight Capacity Optimization to BMC Helix Continuous Optimization. For more information, see Migrating-to-BMC-Helix-Continuous-Optimization.
Out-of-the-box capacity views for vSphere infrastructure and virtual machines
Analyze and manage the capacity of a virtualized infrastructure running vSphere-based virtualization systems using the vSphere views. These views present key capacity metrics and charts for vSphere clusters, hosts, datastores, and virtual machines. These views also provide a set of recommended actions to help you resolve any issues that are identified in your virtualized infrastructure. For more information, see vSphere-views.
Simplified installation of additional packages
Install all available packages, such as views, integrations (Sentry and Moviri integrators), and extensions from the Additional Packages tab (Administration > System > Maintenance). For details, see Performing-system-maintenance-tasks.
ETL module enhancements
The following ETL modules are enhanced to support new features and additional metrics:
ETL module | Enhancements |
|---|---|
Added support to manage the Huawei OceanStore storage systems by using REST APIs. | |
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Added the option to import the entity interface alias as an interface name (metric subresource name). | |
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August 23, 2021
Tags to group and filter resources
Add tags to specific resources based on their purpose, region, status, types, and so on. Use the Tag filter to easily search for and filter the resources in your infrastructure. For more information, see Working with tags.
The following video (3:05) explains the Tag feature and demonstrates how to create and use tags.
Updates to Reports
The following enhancements are added to Reports:
Composite report based on existing reports
Use the Report wizard to consolidate existing reports into a single report. For more information, see Creating reports.
Report based on a report template
Save a report that contains analyses and models that you frequently use as a template. Use this template to quickly create a report that uses similar content.
Watch the following video (2:55) to learn how to create a report based on a template.
July 27, 2021
Product name is changed to BMC Helix Continuous Optimization
BMC Helix Capacity Optimization is renamed to BMC Helix Continuous Optimization.
Updates to the Migration Simulation Settings page
The following enhancements are added to the Migration Simulation Settings page:
Integrated on-premises cost estimator
Use the Cost Estimator Inputs tab to estimate the monthly on-premises costs of the physical and virtual resources in your environment. Specify the on-premises characteristics, such as a number of physical hosts, number of VMs, and operating systems, which are considered for calculating the costs. You can also specify costs for other factors, such as network, personnel, storage, and facilities.
Discounts or an additional cost for public cloud pricing catalogs
Specify a discount or an additional cost, such as personnel expenses, to be applied to the cost of resources that are provisioned in the public cloud.
Last update date for public cloud price catalogs
The Settings page displays the date when the public cloud price catalogs were last updated.
Report creation by using existing Analyses and Models
Use existing analyses and models to create a consolidated report for easier and quicker analysis of domain-based content in a structured layout. Schedule the generation of the report to share it with the stakeholders.
For more information, see Creating reports.
Correlation analyses and extrapolation models
Use correlation analyses to correlate resource utilization for the systems and business drivers, analyze correlation map, and hence identify issues, trends, and bottlenecks. The correlation analyses available in BMC Helix Continuous Optimization are Performance versus load analysis, Load versus load analysis, and Performance versus performance analysis. For more information, see Correlating resource utilization for systems and business drivers.
Extrapolation models forecast for metric values in relation with other metrics based on the correlation defined in the correlation analysis. For more information, see Working with extrapolation models.
Usability improvements
Search in Views
Search for systems in a specific view or across all the out-of-the-box capacity views. For more information, see Using common fields and options in Views.
Charts in What-if Simulation
With interactive charts in a What-if Simulation, view the CPU and memory utilization and analyze the bottlenecks to avoid the risk of saturation. For more information, see Using-simulations-to-predict-the-growth-of-your-resources.
May 27, 2021
The following video (1:59) provides a summary of some of the new features in this release:
What-if simulation to predict the growth of resources in Kubernetes deployments
Use the What-if simulation to predict the behavior and analyze the capacity of resources for a set of Kubernetes deployments. Specify the expected growth of resources for a future date in the forecast period, and use the simulation results to identify the bottlenecks and capacity issues. You can add resources and scale up the deployment to remediate a saturation risk.
For more information, see Using simulations to predict the growth of your resources.
Visibility into your business services using the Business Services view
Use the Business Services view to get a consolidated summary of the overall health and status of the business services in your infrastructure. Drill down into specific business services and view the associated applications, service pools, or deployment details. This information helps you analyze the capacity at the service pool or deployment level.
For more information, see Business Services view.
Simulate the migration of your servers to the public cloud
Use Migration Simulation to review and analyze the future cost estimates and cost trends of migrating your on-premises servers to the public cloud. This information can help you decide whether you should continue to use your on-premises servers, migrate them to a public cloud, or migrate them from one cloud to another.
The simulation results provide recommendations for the type and size of the infrastructure instances on the public cloud provider along with the associated costs.
For more information, see Estimating the cost of migrating servers to the public cloud.
Entity management
You can edit, move, and delete entities in the Workspace. For more information, see Lifecycle and status of entities and domains.
Use the global search to search for entities in Workspace and Administration. For more information, see Searching for entities.
Out-of-the-box view for Oracle database clusters
The OEM view helps you analyze and manage the capacity of database clusters and hosts in your Oracle infrastructure. For more information, see OEM view.
Extended coverage for data collection
ETL module enhancements
The following ETL modules are enhanced to support new features and additional metrics:
ETL module | Enhancements |
|---|---|
Enhanced to import additional subresource metrics. For more information, see Entity relationship, metrics and lookup information for BMC - TrueSight Capacity Optimization Gateway VIS files parser. | |
Added a configuration parameter to aggregate:
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Removed the unnecessary column locationnm. | |
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Extended software support
The following ETLs support the following additional software versions:
ETL module | Newly supported software version |
|---|---|
MongoDB | |
guava | |
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ElasticSearch version 6.8 |
April 22, 2021
Out-of-the-box capacity views for standalone servers
Analyze and manage the capacity of standalone servers in your infrastructure. The Server views enable you to manage the capacity and performance of the standalone servers. For more information, see Server views.
Enhanced ETL Development Kit
The ETL Development Kit allows you to activate or deactivate custom ETL packages by using an API key. For more information, see Creating and managing custom ETLs.
Notifications for Optimizer rules
Specify a list of recipients that will receive automatic notifications via email messages when the Optimizer rule conditions are satisfied. For more information, see Configuring and managing Optimizer rules.
Status page to view the ETL processing and volumes data
View the processing status and the volumes of data processed by ETLs by using the Data Warehouse > Status page. The processing status includes the message queue size, message queue age, relations queue size, and relations queue age information. For more information, see Viewing the status of the data warehouse.
Tagging Rule Manager system task
A system task, Tagging Rule Manager, is added in BMC Helix Continuous Optimizationto manage tagging rules. For more information, Managing tagging rules for tag-based search and filtering.
March 20, 2021
Optimization recommendations for Kubernetes resources
A tab for recommendations is added to the Kubernetes view. This tab provides out-of-the-box recommendations that enable you to handle a probable risk or efficiency issue with the capacity of your Kubernetes resources. The following recommendations are provided:
- Forecasted saturation recommendations: Identify containers as well as infrastructure entities such as clusters, nodes, and namespaces for which capacity is nearing saturation or already saturated
- Oversubscription recommendations: Identify oversubscription conditions for clusters
- Overallocation recommendations: Identify containers that are overallocated and are inefficiently consuming resources
You can also analyze the systems and take appropriate actions on them by reviewing the provided recommendations. You can decide to ignore the recommendations or save them for a later review.
For more information, see Recommendations page in the Kubernetes view.
Recommendations for GCP VM instances
A tab for recommendations is added to the GCP view. This tab provides out-of-the-box recommendations that enable you to handle a probable risk or efficiency issue with the capacity of your GCP VM instances. The following recommendations are provided:
- Idle VM recommendations
- Scheduled Power On/Off recommendations
For more information, see Recommendations page in the GCP VM Instances view.
Support for IBM Cloud
ETL to import data from IBM Cloud
The new IBM Cloud - IBM Cloud API Extractor for Classic Infrastructure enables you to collect configuration and performance data of the virtual machines (virtual servers) that are provisioned in your IBM Cloud infrastructure. Use this ETL to collect metrics from the following entities:
- Virtual Server for Classic
- Block storage
- Object storage
Out-of-the-box views for IBM Cloud
Analyze and manage the capacity of virtual server instances in your IBM Cloud infrastructure. The IBM views provide an overview of available capacity, utilization, trends, and residual capacity in terms of CPU, memory, and datastore utilization for each entity. For more information, see IBM views.
Enhanced reporting capabilities
Advanced Summary Data Mart Wizard
In the Summary Data Mart wizard, you can:
- Configure the entity filter.
- Include the parent entity details for the selected entity.
- Edit the properties in the JSON format using the new Advanced Editor. The Advanced Editor supports additional functionalities, such as thresholds, domains, and tags. For more information, see Using the advanced editor of the summary data mart wizard.
The following video (4:52) illustrates the process of creating a summary data mart.
Visualizations powered by BMC Helix Dashboards
Use BMC Helix Dashboards, a SaaS service on BMC Helix Portal that provides the ability to create interactive dashboards for the entities that are managed by BMC Helix Continuous Optimization. You can customize the dashboards in multiple ways to gain valuable insights into your system. For more information, see Using BMC Helix Dashboards v21.05.
Usability improvements
Unified user interface
The separate Console and Dashboard user interfaces are unified with a single logon. Access all the views (built-in and custom) from the Views tab.
Built on the next-generation BMC Helix Portal
BMC Helix Portal is a SaaS solution with built-in common services on a microservices-based architecture. The product also offers a set of integrated BMC Helix products from a single, unified view for an improved end-user experience. You can navigate easily between applications without the need for separate authentication or integration. Use common services such as user management, tenant management, and single sign-on for the BMC products that are integrated on BMC Helix Portal.
Common user management service
All user management functions are performed centrally in BMC Helix Portal. View the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization out-of-the box roles and their related permissions in the BMC Helix Portal Role and Permissions page. For more information, see Default user groups and permissions.
You can provide role-based access control to specific domains by configuring authorization profiles in BMC Helix Continuous Optimization.
The following video (3:14) illustrates the process of configuring authorization profiles.
Ability to import and export views
Data Provider REST API imports and exports the configuration for capacity views from other environments. For more information, see Data Provider API.
Common page to download product components
A new page is available in the Administration tab to download the following product components:
- ETL Development Kit
- Remote ETL Engine
- Gateway Server
- Capacity Agents
- Analyze and Predict components
For more information, see Downloading the product components.
Search the online documentation from the Self-help pane
Use the Self-help pane to search the online documentation for the required content. As you type in a keyword, the related topics are displayed. Click the required topic to access the online documentation.
Extended coverage for data collection
ETL to import data from VMware vCloud Director version 9.x and 10.x
The VMware - Cloud Director 9.x/10.x Extractor enables you to collect configuration and performance data from 9.x and 10.x versions of the VMware Cloud Director. This ETL imports vCloud infrastructure as well as vCloud services data from the vCloud Director. Use this ETL to collect metrics from the following entities:
- VMware - Cloud Director Infrastructure
- vCloud
- Provider vDC
- Org vDC
- Resource Pool
- Host
- Datastore
- VMware - Cloud Director Service
- Organizations: Organization vDCs
- Organization vDC: vApps
- vApp: VMs
Metrics for VMware vSAN
The VMware vCenter Extractor Service collects VMware vSAN metrics for cluster, hosts, virtual machines, and datastores. For more information, see Metrics collected by VMware ETLs.
Metrics for Transaction data
The BMC - TrueSight Capacity Optimization Gateway VIS files parser imports transaction metrics as subresource metrics of workloads. For more information, see Entity relationship, metrics and lookup information for BMC - TrueSight Capacity Optimization Gateway VIS files parser.
ETL module enhancements
The following ETL modules are enhanced to support new features and additional metrics:
ETL module | Enhancements |
|---|---|
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Extended software support
The following ETLs support new software versions:
ETL module | Newly-supported software versions |
|---|---|
7.0 | |
7.0 | |
20.08 21.02 | |
20.08 21.02 | |
11.3.04 | |
Victoria | |
13.4.0.9 | |
5.11 5.10 | |
4.4 4.3 |
For a list of all the supported software versions, see the ETL documentation.
Support for new versions of operating systems
The following operating systems are supported for Remote ETL Engine, Gateway Server, and Capacity Agents:
Operating System | Newly-supported versions |
|---|---|
Remote ETL Engine | |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 7.8 and later |
Gateway Server | |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 7.8 and later |
SUSE | 15 SP2 |
Capacity Agents | |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 7.8 and later |
SUSE | 15 SP2 |
Linux CentOS | 7.8 and later |
Oracle Linux | 8.1 and later |
Citrix Xen | 7.6.0 |
Citrix Hypervisor | 8.0.0 |
Ubuntu | 20.04 LTS |
For information about the supported operating systems for the product components, see .Planning.