HP Virtualization Manager and HP Capacity Advisor: an introduction

Chapter Overview

Each of the technologies in HP’s Virtual Server Environment provides environments with unique

characteristics for hosting workloads. nPartitions, virtual partitions, virtual machines, and Secure

Resource Partitions provide varying degrees of workload isolation, ranging from complete hard-

ware isolation using nPartitions to resource isolation within an operating system using Secure Re-

source Partitions. In addition, each technology provides varying levels of granularity and flexibility

with regard to resource allocation. The Utility Pricing strategies of HP’s Virtual Server Environ-

ment, which include Instant Capacity and Temporary Instant Capacity, provide a means to pur-

chase systems without initially activating all of the hardware, and pay per use provides an option

to pay for only the resources that are actually consumed. Finally, using tools in the VSE Man-

agement Software allows workloads to be managed in a highly available and policy-based envi-

ronment. As a result of the combined technologies in HP’s Virtual Server Environment, many

different choices and options are available for workload deployment in enterprise data centers.

While each of the VSE technologies fills a vital role in the overall solution, several questions

can be difficult to answer without specialized tools. Questions such as, “If I consolidate these

workloads, will the resulting system be able to handle the combined load?” and “How do I know

how big to make my virtual machines?”are often asked but difficult to answer. Another question

that can be perplexing is, “I’m deploying a new workload; where is the best place to put it?” In

order to help capacity planners answer these types of questions and more, HP’s Virtual Server En-

vironment offers the Capacity Advisor product. Capacity Advisor automates the steps that are tra-

ditionally performed manually by capacity planners, thereby freeing the capacity planners to

focus on planning for future workload introductions, migrations, and consolidations.

This chapter begins with an overview of Capacity Advisor. It describes a common Capacity Ad-

visor use model and introduces the most commonly used terms relating to Capacity Advisor. It

illustrates one of the many reasons for capacity planning by describing a planning scenario that

was performed to determine whether two production workloads in HP’s internal IT department

could be consolidated. The chapter concludes with an example scenario that walks through a

Capacity Advisor