Syncsort, a global leader in data optimization, serves over 7,000 customers, including 84 of the Fortune 100, by enhancing capacity management and integrating data systems. The document discusses VMware capacity management, detailing key metrics and measurement techniques crucial for ensuring efficient resource allocation and performance monitoring in virtual environments. It also highlights Syncsort's solutions for predictive analysis and capacity management, emphasizing their ability to prevent outages and optimize IT operations.

1. Understanding
VMware Capacity
Phil Bell

2. Introducing
Syncsort
>7,000 customers
84 of the Fortune 100
Customers in >100 countries
Headquarters: Pearl River, NY
U . S . L O C AT I O N S
• Burlington, MA; Irvine, CA;
Oakbrook Terrace, IL; Rochester, MN
G L O B A L P R E S E N C E
• U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands,
Israel, Hong Kong & Japan
Big Iron to Big Data is a fast-growing
market segment composed of solutions
that optimize traditional data systems
and deliver mission-critical data from
these systems to next-generation
analytic environments.
Global leader in
Big Iron to Big Data

3. Optimize IntegrateAssure
Making critical data useful
Improve performance
and control costs across
the full IT environment,
from legacy systems to
the cloud
Connect today’s data
infrastructure with
tomorrow’s technology –
and ensure data quality
– powering machine
learning, AI and
predictive analytics
Increase data availability
and provide security as
the world moves to
accessing data in 24x7
timeframes and data
protection becomes
mission critical

4. Optimize
Strategic use cases and key partners
• Mainframe optimization
• Cross-platform capacity
management
• Data warehouse
optimization
• Application modernization
Integrate
• Access & integrate machine data for
security & IT ops
• Access & integrate legacy data to the
data lake
• Change data capture
• High-performance ETL
• Data governance
• Customer 360
• Big data quality & integration
Assure
• High availability
• Disaster recovery
• Mission-critical data
migration
• Data security, audit &
encryption for IBM i

5. Best-in-class product portfolio
Athene™
Athene™ Cloud
MFX®
ZPSaver Suite
DL/2™
Zen™ Suite
EZ Suite
MIMIX® Availability™
MIMIX® DR
MIMIX® Move™
Quick-EDD/HA
iTERA®
Cilasoft Audit & Security Suite
Enforcive® Security Suite
Ironstream™
Ironstream™ for IBM i
Ironstream™ Transaction Tracing
DMX™ & DMX-h™
DMX™ Change Data Capture
MIMIX® Share™
Trillium® Software System
Trillium™ Quality for Big Data
Trillium™ Cloud
Trillium™ Global Locator

6. Understanding
VMware Capacity
Phil Bell
July 2018

7. • Why OS Monitoring Can be Misleading
• 5 Key VMWare Metrics for Understanding
VMWare capacity
• How VMWare processor scheduling impacts
CPU capacity measurements
• Measuring Memory Capacity
• Measuring Disk Storage Latency
• Calculating Headroom in VMs
Topics

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Why OS Monitoring Can be Misleading:
Determining CPU usage of a VM
OS: 50% CPU Busy
VMware: 25% CPU Busy
Dormant/Idle
OS: 50% CPU Busy
VMware: 50% CPU Busy
VM1
VM2
CPU: 1 Second

9. Why OS Monitoring Can be Misleading:
OS vs VM CPU, Data Differences

10. Why OS Monitoring Can be Misleading: Time Slicing
• Cores are shared between vCPUs in time slices
• 1 vCPU to 1 core at any point in time
• More vCPUs = More time slicing
• More time slicing = less accurate data from the OS
• Ignore OS metrics that involve time
• (Disk Occupancy is probably OK)
Running Dormant/IdleVM1
VM1
Fast Clock Real Time Clock

11. 5 Key VMWare Metrics
• CPU MHz
• VM, Host, Cluster
• Ready Time
• Active Memory
• VM, Cluster
• Ballooned Memory
• Host Disk Latency
• Device, Kernel & Queue

12. Host 2
100%
5 Key VMWare Metrics: CPU MHz vs CPU%
16
CPU
44.8
GHz
Host 1
100% 32
CPU
89.6
GHz
Host 1 Host 2
VMs
80%

13. 5 Key VMWare Metrics:
CPUs with different GHz: VMs
2.4
GHz
Chips
3.2
GHz
Chips
Host 1 Host 2
APP
OS
APP
OS
VM VM
80% CPU Busy80% CPU Busy
106% CPU Busy
VMware Assumption:
Every GHz is equal

14. Ready Time
• VM wants to process, but can’t
• Accumulated against VM
• More of a stack than a queue
• Contention for CPUs
• Performance impact
How to avoid Ready Time
• Fewer vCPUs per VM
• Monitor: CPU Threads vs vCPUs
• & Ready Time
5 Key VMWare Metrics:
Ready Time

15. VMWare Processor Scheduling:
Proportion of Time: 4 vCPU VM

16. VMWare Processor Scheduling:
Proportion of Time: 2 vCPU VM

17. IdleReadyThreads
VMWare Processor Scheduling:
vCPU Co-Scheduling & Ready Time
1
2
3
4
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM

18. VMWare Processor Scheduling:
Ready Time - Recap
• Impacts on performance
• Monitor Ready Time as well as CPU %
• Avoid using high vCPU VMs - more vCPUs introduces
the potential of higher ready time

19. Measuring Memory Capacity: Not that simple
• Tightest headroom in most clusters
• Not just a question of % used
• Other VMWare memory management techniques
• Reservations
• Limits
• Ballooning
• Shared Pages
• Active Memory
• Memory Available for VMs

20. Measuring Memory Capacity: VM Memory Occupancy

21. Measuring Memory Capacity: VM Memory Performance

22. Measuring Memory Capacity: Cluster Memory

23. Measuring Disk Storage Latency:
At the OS vs. within VMWare
• Why not KB/s or IO Time at the OS?
• Time slicing
• VMware has more detail
• 2 Levels of Interest
• Device
• Kernel

24. Measuring Disk Storage Latency:
Kernel I/O Processing on processor 0

25. Measuring Disk Storage Latency
Total vs. Device Latency

26. Calculating Headroom in VMs
• Makes traditional Capacity Planners uncomfortable
• Easy number for the business to absorb
• Estimates are ok
• Your Mileage May Vary
Allowing
for future
projects
there’s still
17 GHz and
100GB of
RAM
available
There’s space for roughly 10
more VMs before we need
hardware changes

27. Headroom in Number of VMs
• (Size of the cluster – Used) / Average VM usage
• Do you have to cope with host failures (allow for
failover capacity)?
• Which is the largest host?
• What are you sizing on?
• vCPUs to Core ratio?
• MHz and MB
• … Something else?
• Can you calculate your average VM?
• Prefer Small/Medium/Large?

28. Data Sources
• From your capacity management tool
• Or collected manually from vCenter
• A good peak
• Not when windows updates being applied
and/or rebooted
• Future project requirements

29. Good Peak

30. VMs Available

31. Including Known Plans

32. Trend

33. Roundup
• Ready Time
• Time slicing, vCPUs
• Memory
• Active, Balloon, Swap
• Disk Latency
• Define the size of your cluster
• Average VM usage
• Good peak
• Trend result

34. AtheneTM - Capacity and Performance Management
AtheneTM
• Relied on by the world’s
leading companies
• Automates the capture and
storage of data and the
creation of capacity reports
• Provides predictive analysis
to help with sizing of
infrastructures today and in
the future
• Includes the mainframe,
IBM i, Unix, Windows,
storage, business, financial
data, and more
Syncsort Professional Services
• Provides capacity
management expertise to
help organization best
manage capacity and
achieve maximum ROI
• Creates capacity reports,
capacity plans, and strategic
recommendations to those
organization needing that
expertise or staff
augmentation
• Leverage Syncsort’s
expertise – our consultants
have decades of experience
AtheneTM Cloud
• World class solution without
the need to provision,
maintain and manage
Athene hardware
• Secure transfer of data from
your environment to
Athene® in the cloud
• Ongoing management of
historical data
• Optional services can help
organizations start or
augment a Capacity
Management process

35. Why AtheneTM
Less Complexity
Capture and store data from the
entire infrastructure; automate
reporting and alerting; no detailed
system expertise required
Clearer Capacity Information
Identify existing and potential
capacity and performance threats;
prepares and visualizes key data for
time-to-live and bottleneck analysis
Healthier IT Operations
Near real-time alerts identify
problems in all key environments
View latency, transactions per
second, exceptions, etc.
Effective Incident Resolution
Management
Near real-time views to identify real or
potential failures earlier; view detailed
data to support triage repair or
prevention
Higher Operational Efficiency
Enhanced process correlation across
systems; Staff resolves problems faster;
“do more with less”
Eliminate Your Infrastructure
“Blind-Spots”
Get a complete view of Capacity and
Performance – technical, business,
financial – across the enterprise

36. Better Service,
Significant Cost
Savings at Global
Financial Services
Firm
“Athene allows us to automate our
processes and get the information that’s
vital to our business. We’ve saved
significant money and time using Athene.”
— Senior technical analyst
O B J E C T I V E
• Save money while reducing the
number of capacity-related outages
and slowdowns
• Meet SLAs now and in the future
C H A L L E N G E
• Cost of IT skyrocketing
• Outages put business at risk
• Balancing IT spending and IT
performance
S O L U T I O N
• Athene for capacity planning and
management -- delivered insights and
analysis for the organization to make
sound business decisions
B E N E F I T
• Avoided over 100 outages and saved
almost $4M in spend in 3 years
• Informed hardware purchase decisions
• Faster resolution of incidents
• Implemented more strategic,
sustainable approach

37. VMware Capacity Management Assessment
• 2 days consulting (1 on-site) with a presentation of
results and recommendations
• Formal CM process recommendations
• ITIL Capacity Plan template
• Gap Analysis for tool capabilities
• A $5000 value, free to the first 5 companies that
respond
• Contact us at rich.fronheiser@syncsort.com
Next Steps