HP Capacity Advisor 7.2 User Guide

5 Using Capacity Analysis
Introduction
Data center management involves thousands of physical servers and tens of thousands of virtual
servers. When there is a problem, the IT department is expected to resolve these issues in a way
that minimizes the impact on business.
Many issues can be detected or diagnosed by examining utilization data. Capacity Analysis is
an automated tool that combs through gigabytes of utilization data and helps you locate likely
problems. It amplifies your reach in finding both immediate and impending problems in the data
center.
The Capacity Analysis environment consists of:
• The Capacity Analysis dashboard, which displays analysis queries and allows users to view
query results and create new analysis queries.
• The Analysis Service, which loads metrics from data collectors into the Utilization Database.
• The Utilization Database, which stores utilization data collected from the systems.
Figure 7 Capacity Analysis environment
Each night, all the utilization data that is collected during the day is rolled up into different metrics
that are used in running queries and composing query results. This rolled up data is stored in the
database, which is designed for fast searches. Each query can be evaluated in a fraction of a
second, even when hundreds or thousands of servers are being scanned.
Capacity Analysis queries can be used for several purposes. For example, they can help you locate
underused or overused systems, energy inefficient systems, systems making poor use of licenses,
and systems with configuration issues.
Capacity Analysis comes with predefined queries to monitor resource utilization on network systems
over a period of time. It also allows you to define new, custom queries. When creating or editing
queries, you can define the information to be listed in a query's results, thereby creating a
customized report.
For a description of each Capacity Analysis predefined query, see “Predefined analysis queries”
(page 107).
See “Creating custom analysis queries” (page 109) for a step-by-step guide to creating custom
queries.
Introduction 99