Configuring migration simulation and recommendation settings

Use settings on the Optimization page to configure properties that impact the cloud migration simulation and overallocated VM recommendation results.

About the settings

The following table lists the various settings that are available on the Optimization page, the features that are impacted by the settings, and their descriptions:

Setting	Impacted feature	Description
Target Providers	Cloud migration simulation	Select the 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.
Strategy	Cloud migration simulation	Select the 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. You can choose to include 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.
Storage Allocation	Cloud migration simulation Overallocated VM recommendation	Specify whether you want to include the ephemeral/temporary storage (if any) of the proposed server in the recommended amount of storage (external volumes) to be purchased. If you want the data in your storage to persist across power-off cycles, do not select ephemeral storage.
Optimization Behavior	Cloud migration simulation Overallocated VM recommendation	Select the 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.
Public Catalog Pricing Customization	Cloud migration simulation Overallocated VM recommendation	Specify an additional cost or discount to be applied to the cost of resources that are provisioned in the public cloud. The discount percentage value can be used to represent any special agreement that you have with your cloud provider. The additional cost value can be used to consider surcharge such as personnel expenses. This value is used in computing the cost when you simulate the migration of public cloud VMs, generate Overallocated VM recommendations for the public cloud VMs, and generate cost savings with AWS reserved instances.

To configure migration simulation and recommendation settings

Access the settings on the Optimization page

1. Log on to the TrueSight console.
2. Expand the left navigation pane and select Cloud Cost Control. By default, Summary > Costs page is displayed.
3. Click the Settings icon and select Settings.
  The Settings page is displayed.

Configure the settings

Click the action menu next to the Settings page title and select Edit.

The Settings page opens in edit mode. The Optimization tab is selected by default.
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.
To modify the migration simulation approach, under the Strategy section, select one of the following options:
- Lift-and-shift
- Utilization-based
  By default, the Utilization-based approach is used by the product to generate the simulation results. For more information about simulating the cloud migration, see Estimating-the-cost-of-migrating-servers-to-the-public-cloud.
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. Only burstable instances in Standard mode (T2 Standard, T3 Standard) are supported. Unlimited mode for burstable instances is not supported.

If you want to include the ephemeral or temporary storage of the proposed server in the recommended amount of storage (external volumes) to be purchased, select External volumes, ephemeral/temporary storage.

As a result, the proposed storage value of the target server considers the sum of the ephemeral storage and the external storage (EBS volume) values.

For example, consider the following screenshots that show the migration results for phx–01 based on the selected setting. The Storage of the source server is 59.9 GB.

Selected setting	Migration simulation result
External volumes (Default)	The Storage of the proposed server does not consider the Ephemeral/Temporary Storage value (20) and suggests that you buy 58.3 GB of external storage.
External volumes, ephemeral/temporary storage	The Storage of the proposed server considers the Ephemeral/Temporary Storage value (20) and suggests that you buy the external storage accordingly. So the proposed amount of storage to buy = (58.3 - 20) = 38.3 GB

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, 95^th 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 90^th percentile value of hourly samples. Then, 95^th 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 95^th 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 95^th percentile value of hourly samples. Then, 95^th 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 95^th 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.

For information about the data sources that enable you to collect metrics for the optimization behaviors, see Data-source-requirements-for-VM-resizing.

To modify the threshold of a metric or an indicator, click Optimizer Thresholds. The Thresholds page in the TrueSight 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.
To provide an additional cost or discount to be applied to the resources in the public cloud, in the Public Catalog Pricing Customization section, select the public cloud provider, and specify the Discount or Additional Cost amount in percentage.

Click Save.

The Cost Estimation service uses the settings from this page in its next run to compute the costs. If you modified the Optimization Behavior section, Optimizer rules that are defined with the following template group are initiated to run: Cloud, VMWare Virtualization, and Hyper-V Virtualization.

Definitions

Burstable instance: An instance that is low-cost and belongs to the General Purpose family. It is designed to provide a baseline level of CPU performance that can automatically burst to a higher level when required.Burstable instances are well suited for general-purpose applications such as microservices, low-latency interactive applications, small and medium databases, virtual desktops, development, build, and stage environments. For AWS, burstable instances belong to the T2 and T3 families. For Azure, they belong to the B-series VM family. For more information, see AWS burstable instances and Azure burstable instances.

Instrumented server: A server with an Agent installed on it to collect granular or detailed metrics.