Using the Smart Solver

The solutions show the systems converted to VM guests on VM Hosts. These VM hosts are either existing VM hosts, what-if generated template VM hosts, or a combination, depending on what targets you desired. When a combination of VM hosts are chosen, the placement of VM guests goes first to existing VM hosts, and then to the template VM hosts.

Further, as part of the input parameters, you can select to load balance the resulting VM hosts. This load balancing occurs after and only amongst the target VM hosts that are required for the consolidation solution. In other words, if the consolidation solution results in any VM hosts being unused (and therefore, not required in the solution), the unused systems will not be involved in the load balancing. Only the required systems in the solution are involved in the load balancing.

The resulting solution is the configuration requiring the fewest number of systems and leaving the least headroom (e.g., tightest fit), while taking into consideration resource utilizations and utilization limits (see the Resources section below).

Resources. The placement of VM guests takes into consideration CPU, Memory, Network I/O, and Disk I/O capacity, and utilization limits. If load balancing (balancing resource utilization across the resulting systems) was desired, the VM guests were load balanced across the systems that had 1 or more VM guests.

Resource Capacity. Workloads that specify utilization limits for a metric (e.g., Memory, Disk I/O) can only be placed on resources that define a capacity for the corresponding metric. In other words, if you specified that a workload never exceed 100% memory utilization, that workload can only be placed on a system for which total memory capacity is known.

Utilization Limits. While it is not necessary to specify a utilization limit for each metric, every workload selected must have at least one utilization limit applied before using the Smart Solver. This can be any type of utilization limit, including the default global utilization limit. For example, one may eliminate disk and network I/O utilization limits across all workloads in order to generate a solution that focuses on CPU and memory utilization.

Headroom Rating. The headroom rating shows the amount of free room above the existing resource utilizations that will exist for the resulting systems. Among the solutions that require the same target systems, the solution with the tightest fit is shown.

Fewer Systems Shown. The Smart Solver solution may contain fewer VM host targets than originally selected. This can occur if the workloads can all fit on fewer systems than originally selected. For example, if systems A, B, and C were selected as target VM hosts but all the workloads can fit into VM hosts A and B, then only VM hosts A and B will be shown in the solution.

Systems Involved in Load Balancing. When load balancing is performed, the loads are balanced only across the resulting systems. For example, if only VM hosts A and B are used (and VM Host C is not), then load balancing is performed only across VM hosts A and B. VM host C is not included for the load balancing.

Headroom Rating Shows Zero (0) Stars . The resulting headroom rating will show zero stars even though it appears that there is sufficient room on the VM host. This happens whenever one or more of the original servers already violates a utilization limit prior to the Smart Solver being run. Before running the Smart Solver, you should ensure that your source servers are not already violating a utilization limit.

The solutions show workloads which are balanced across the selected existing servers or VM Hosts. Load balancing is based upon CPU, Memory, Network I/O, and Disk I/O capacity, utilization limits, and headroom, where the goal is to distribute workloads so that each systems has comparable headroom and therefore, similar headroom ratings.

Resource Capacity. Workloads that specify utilization limits for a metric (e.g., Memory, Disk I/O) can only be placed on resources that define a capacity for the corresponding metric. In other words, if you specified that a workload never exceed 100% memory utilization, that workload can only be placed on a system for which total memory capacity is known.

Utilization Limits. Every workload selected must have at least one utilization limit applied before using the Smart Solver. This can be any type of utilization limit, including the default global utilization limit.

Headroom Rating. The headroom rating shows the amount of free room above the existing resource utilizations that will exist for the resulting systems. Only the solution with the best headroom rating is shown.

The Load Balanced Results Appear Unbalanced.  The solution of a load-balance may not look balanced because smaller systems generally end up with a smaller percentage of usage than larger systems, and very small systems may end up with no workloads at all. For example, a large 16GB system at 87% memory usage leaves 2GBs of headroom, and a smaller 4GB system at 87% leaves only 500MBs of headroom; aiming for 87% usage on both systems actually would not yield a balanced solution. Instead, a balanced solution is to fill the larger 16GB system to 87% and fill the smaller 4GB system to only 50%; in this placement, workloads placed on either system will have the same amount of headroom to grow.

No Apparent Change from Original . The solution may be the same as the original scenario; it looks as if there was no computation performed. What has actually happened is that the Smart Solver could not find a better solution than the current configuration of systems. This means that the current configuration is the current best solution. A message will be displayed in BLUE indicating that the results are not an error (errors are displayed in RED).

No Apparent Change on 1 or more Systems. The solution may show no change on 1 or more target systems. This may appear that the Smart Solver did not included the target server in its computations. In actuality, the Smart Solver determined that as part of the best solution, it was best to leave these target systems with its original configuration.

Fewer Systems Shown. The solution may contain fewer system targets than originally selected. This can occur if the workloads can all fit on fewer systems than originally selected. For example, if systems A, B, and C were selected as targets but all the workloads can fit into system A and B, then only systems A and B will be shown in the solution.

Smaller Systems Appear Unused. The solution may display the smaller systems, appear as if the smaller systems were not included in the Smart Solver computations. In actuality, the Smart Solver attempts to place the workloads on target systems, taking into account the robustness of those systems. If the workloads fit on the larger systems, where the smaller systems then go unused, the solution will display only the larger, used systems. For example, if there are two large systems and a two small systems, the solution may require only the two large systems to be used, and then the load balancing will occur only on those two systems. The smaller system will not need to be used and will not be displayed, but they have been taken into account by the Smart Solver computations.

The solutions show the target systems with the selected workloads placed to require as few of the target systems as possible. The target systems are either existing VM hosts, what-if generated template VM hosts, or a combination, depending on what targets you selected. When a combination of VM hosts are chosen, the placement of VM guests goes first to existing VM hosts. and then to the template VM hosts.

Resource Capacity. Workloads that specify utilization limits for a metric (e.g., Memory, Disk I/O) can only be placed on resources that define a capacity for the corresponding metric. In other words, if you specified that a workload never exceed 100% memory utilization, that workload can only be placed on a system for which total memory capacity is known.

Utilization Limits. Every workload selected must have at least one utilization limit applied before using the Smart Solver. This can be any type of utilization limit, including the default global utilization limit.

Headroom Rating. The headroom rating shows the amount of free room above the existing resource utilizations that will exist for the resulting systems. Only the solution with the best headroom rating is shown.

Fewer Systems Shown. The solution may contain fewer system targets than originally selected. This can occur if the workloads can all fit on fewer systems than originally selected. For example, if systems A, B, and C were selected as targets but all the workloads can fit into system A and B, then only systems A and B will be shown in the solution.

Systems Involved in Load Balancing. When load balancing is performed, the loads are balanced only across the resulting systems. For example, if only systems A and B are used (and system C is not), then load balancing is performed only across systems A and B. System C is not included for the load balancing.