Overview of Cost Analyzer scheduled operations

You should establish the following environment for Cost Analyzer:

• Depending on the number of LPARs, volume of the data, schedule of SMF dumps on the mainframe side, and the need to see Cost Analyzer reports ASAP, you can set up a 24-hour, 12-hour, 8-hour, or other hourly cycle.
• In each cycle, UIE is scheduled to run and process data for all LPARs.

  • If you are using other CMM products, such as Visualizer, at least some of the Cost Analyzer charts and reports require processing in a single UIE run of all LPARs from a particular CPC.

    Cost Analyzer itself does not have such a requirement. Several groups of LPARs can be processed in separate UIE runs. However, to produce valid R4HA and cost estimates, it is necessary to process all LPARs all the time. If some LPAR data will be missing, Cost Analyzer still can produce the reports, but the values will not necessarily match the SCRT report and IBM bill.

  • You must use the same GMT Offset value in the GMTOFF command for all UIE Jobs that produce data for both the CDB Database and for Cost Analyzer cost models.
• Certain UIE commands affect the information in Cost Analyzer models. These commands are:
  • Commands defining Physical System name and parameters (PSYS)
  • Commands defining VM Guests and VM Hosts
  • Commands defining aggregation of work into larger units (SUITE). These commands should be specified in such way that ensures consistency of these units during the usage month.
  • Commands defining the time zone for the data in the CDB
• After successful UIE runs, the generated Visualizer files populate into the CDB server by a scheduled Automator event. In the Automator script, the Build Model event creates all Cost Analyzer models for the current usage month, gathering into this model all data from the beginning of the usage month. The current models replace all of the models from a previous cycle, which by that time might already be invalid because the latest populated data can contain different Peak values and costs. For any usage month, there is always only one set of valid models (CPCs and Workloads). The current set of models contains one model per CPC and up to 6 types of Workload models per CPC.

After Model Builder Tasks execute, Cost Analyzer makes the cost models available for use with the Software Contract Reporting, Monthly Reporting, and Planning tools and can be selected for use together with all previous usage month models.