Continue reading »]]> Virtualization is a compelling solution for organizations to increase productivity, reduce complexity and improve the predictability of their IT infrastructure. Typically, the first step towards virtualization is a project that will identify an optimal IT infrastructure, consolidation opportunities and cost savings.

For an overview of capacity planner please read this article.

VMware Capacity Planner Assessment Service (CE)

For companies planning on implementing server consolidation and virtualization, our VMware Capacity Planner Assessment Service (CE) provides a comprehensive inventory of current capacities and capabilities, a detailed deployment strategy and optionally a financial analysis required to help you create a solid business case to proceed with confidence.

Using VMware Capacity Planner, our assessment service is an accurate, bench-marked process based on industry-best practices and procedures including the discovery and inventory of all servers that are candidates for consolidation and virtualization, capture and analysis of server traffic to determine capacity and performance metrics, creation of consolidation and virtualization recommendations and the generation and delivery of a final report that includes all findings and recommendations. Optionally a financial (TCO/ROI) analysis can be delivered. The VMware Capacity Planner Data Manager uploads collected data to a data warehouse at VMware for further analysis. Capacity Planner is left to gather data for a period of at least 30 days, during which we will monitor the online dashboard to ensure all is well and the data is being gathered and uploaded successfully. The engagement concludes with the writing of a report offsite. The report includes:

• Potential virtualization scenarios – for server consolidation and containment
• Estimated Total Cost of Ownership financial analysis with an estimated Return on Investment (Optional Service)
• High-level roadmap and next steps

Timelines

An assessment will typically consist of a 3-day consultancy engagement.

Day 1:

• Kick-off meeting with key customer staff
• Installation and configuration of VMware Capacity Planner
• Verification that data is being captured and sent to the VMware Information Warehouse.

Day 2:

• Verify Capacity Planner is still operational and address any issues with data collection and upload to the Information Warehouse
• Conduct interviews with key IT stakeholders to obtain non-measurable information, in order to develop recommended virtualization solutions

Day 3  (after the 30 day data collection period):

• Analyse the collected data
• Write the Capacity Planner Assessment report
• Deliver the report to the customer and discuss with a conference call or face-to-face meeting if required.

Customer Pre-requisites

For the installation of the VMware Capacity Planner tool (Data Manager and Data Collector) a dedicated server (physical or virtual) installed in the same domain as the Active Directory server to discover target machines needs to be provided by the customer. It needs to meet the following requirements:

• Windows 2003 R2 SP2 server or Windows 2008 server (English version, must be set to US English local)
• Minimum 1.5 GHz CPU
• Minimum 1 GB RAM
• 2 GB free disk space
• Win32_Product class, WMI and Remote Registry installed
• Connection to the internet (bandwidth +/- 20000 bytes/sec)

To install the Data Manager and Data Collector and to run the Data Collector Service an administrative account is needed on the Data Collector Host System. This account needs to have the permission to start a service. (“Log on as a service” privilege) Accounts with local administrative rights to the target systems are required to collect information. The quickest way to collect information is through a domain administrator account or any account with administrative rights to all the target systems. If no appropriate account exists, you can specify an account for each system after the collector discovers. Username and password details are entered by hand and it is recommended that the customer performs this task to avoid security issues. Usernames and passwords are stored in an encrypted database locally on the Data Manager.

The collector must be able to connect to all target systems to be monitored using specific protocols and ports. The required ports are general-purpose communication ports that are used for file and print sharing and authentication. The following ports need to be open on Windows systems: 135, 137, 138, 139, 445.

The customer should identify up to 500 x86-based target servers to be analysed per data collector server. The list of target servers to be analysed should be provided in a csv format with two columns: server group and hostnames. Each target server should have WMI, Remote Registry, File and Print sharing (IPC$) and Performance Monitor (Perfmon) enabled. Remote collection of perfmon data should be possible.

Request a VMware Capacity Planner here

Continue reading »]]> VMware Capacity Planner is a business and IT capacity planning tool for the datacenter and desktop that provides an integrated set of analysis, planning and decision support functions to enable faster, measurable and more accurate infrastructure assessment services.

Benefits

• Faster, more accurate, benchmarked datacenter and desktop capacity assessments and planning.
• Improved visibility of complex datacenter and desktop environments.
• Increased productivity, reduced complexity and improved predictability of datacenter and desktop infrastructure.

Standard Approaches to Capacity Planning

Inventory

To make good decisions about capacity planning and server consolidation one needs to know what capacity is currently present.

• How many servers are available in your organization
• How much capacity (resources) is available in your organization: processor, memory, storage, network

Availability and Utilization of Current Capacity

Obtain a detailed understanding of the available and used capacity (processor, memory, storage and network). The data should be correlated to obtain a useful picture.

Uncorrelated data

Correlated data The correlated data shows more opportunity for server consolidation, revealing that the capacity utilization is only 16 percent. The analysis based on percentage of CPU utilization alone was distorted by the fact that older, slower CPUs were being used more intensively than newer, faster CPUs.

Utilization Variation over Time

Calculating average utilization has some value, but it is more important to know peak hour utilization. Peak utilization will differ within a 24-hour period based on the types of users, applications on the server, scheduled maintenance, batch processing and so forth. The peak hour is the 1-hour in the 24-hour period that has the highest average utilization. Average utilization is calculated using data collected between for example 07:00h and 19:00h or for the entire 24-hour period. The difference between these two metrics is significant.

Determine how to consolidate

After all the necessary and relevant information has been obtained, the most important step follows: using this information to recommend changes that will consolidate the environment in an effective yet manageable way. Several considerations should be addressed to achieve this goal:

• Optimize the performance of your applications. For example, any of the following conditions can lead to excessive resource usage:
  • Poorly configured storage resources
  • Excessive virus scanning on Exchange systems
  • Bad index design on SQL server systems
  • Excessive logon processing in Citrix environments
• Which workloads can be combined based upon predicted total resource utilization. This depends on the resource utilization of each original server as well as thresholds for usage based upon factors such as peak load.
• Which servers are too obsolete to maintain, and what server hardware can be purchased in order to achieve a net consolidation gain.
• Which workloads should be consolidated onto a particular system? Some people are tempted to stack multiple virtualized servers running the same application into a single ESX server system. This approach limits the consolidation opportunity, because similar applications compete for the same resources. One needs to determine what resources each application requires, match applications that demand different resource allocations to maximize virtualization opportunity

• Evaluate the demand placed on various servers at different times of the day

VMware Capacity Planner

General

VMware Capacity Planner is designed to collect and analyze the data you need to plan an effective server consolidation project. At the heart of VMware Capacity Planner is a unique Information Warehouse, which houses a constantly growing set of industry reference data that is used to drive intelligent, benchmarked IT capacity recommendations. With VMware Capacity Planner you will be able to answer the following questions:

• How many servers do we have?
• How well are we utilizing them?
• What is the right amount of capacity
• What are the options and what is the best recommendation?
• How else can we better optimize our environment?

Analyze

VMware Capacity Planner enables to conduct comprehensive assessments of your existing infrastructure to assess how much IT capacity currently exists and how well this capacity is being utilized. Agent-less implementation ensures discovery and inventory of all hardware and software assets, providing a complete view of the IT infrastructure. VMware Capacity Planner then correlates key performance metrics with inventory data to generate server load profiles. This information enables you to analyze and evaluate how well current capacities are being utilized.

Plan

VMware Capacity Planner enables you to develop an effective capacity optimization plan so you can determine exactly how much IT capacity you will need, considering current and future business needs. VMware Capacity Planner enables you to analyze capacity utilization metrics, predict capacity needs, forecast utilization trends and compare your data against industry benchmarks.

Model

During the modeling phase, VMware Capacity Planner enables you to evaluate the various alternatives generated in the planning phase. You van use scenario modeling to test alternatives including purchase planning, virtualization and server consolidation. You can alos conduct what-if scenarios for consolidation based on different groupings, thresholds, target servers, and other factors.

Monitor

VMware Capacity Planner helps you continuously compare resource utilization against benchmarked thresholds to ensure ongoing capacity optimization. You can provide periodic reports to monitor current capacity utilization and compare them to industry benchmarks in order to detect anomalies in utilization. Automated alerts and monitoring capabilities enable you to detect deviations in utilization trends, predict capacity problems, and make timely troubleshooting and optimization recommendations. You can continue to take advantage of VMware Capacity Planner capabilities to ensure that you are able to manage unexpected or planned changes in capacity requirements and utilization over time.

How VMware Capacity Planner works

VMware Capacity Planner is a web-based application that combines inventory and utilization data. It gathers data without the need for agents installed on target systems. It then generates optimization recommendations, enables modeling for server consolidation and virtualization projects, and provides ongoing capacity planning decision support. The key components of VMware Capacity Planner are:

• The data Collector
• The Data Manager
• The Data Analyzer
• The Information Warehouse
• The VMware Capacity Planner Dashboard

Data Collector

The Data Collector discovers and inventories information from all the computers on your network or from only a subset that you want to evaluate. No software or agents is installed on any server. The Data Collector runs on a single server and all collections are executed using remote procedure calls. Network impact is minimal and CPU load on the targeted server is less than 1 percent.

Data Manager

The Data Manager provides an organized view of the collected information and administrative control for the Data Collector. This includes detailed and summary views and reports on all discovered objects, collected inventory and monitored performance information. The Data Manager also includes data synchronization capability that is used to send sterilized, anonymous data in the form of CSV files over HTTPS to the Information Warehouse.

Information Warehouse

The Information Warehouse is a central data warehouse hosted at VMware where collected client data is sent and stored. The Information Warehouse includes industry benchmark and research data derived from hundreds of VMware Capacity Planner client sites. The data is not client-specific.

Data Analyzer

The Data Analyzer servers as the core analytical engine that processes all the analysis required for intelligent capacity planning. It combines inventory and performance data to develop server load profiles and calculate insightful utilization metrics.

VMware Capacity Planner Dashboard

The VMware Capacity Planner Dashboard is a web-based hosted application that delivers a rich set of IT infrastructure analysis and capacity planning capabilities to users. Reports provided with the Dashboard range from inventory, performance and utilization reports to advanced analyses that enable you to run what-if scenarios and generate intelligent capacity optimization recommendations.

Rigorous Information Collection

The Data Collector component of VMware Capacity Planner discovers servers and desktops by name and operating system within minutes. Over the next few hours, VMware Capacity Planner collects a detailed inventory of all servers and desktops. VMware Capacity Planner collects more than 40 core performance statistics plus additional relevant statistics for specific applications from the 4 main data groups of processor, memory, storage and network utilization. VMware Capacity Planner collects data every hour and calculates peak hour utilization in the 24-hour day. After several weeks, it identifies utilization for the busiest hour in the week. VMware Capacity Planner maintains a summary for the most recent 4 weeks of performance statistics.

Get an Assessment of your Datacenter today

Services based on VMware Capacity Planner are available through VMware Professional Services or VMware partners who are trained on VMware Capacity Planner and authorized to deliver assessment services. You can request a VMware Capacity Planner Assessment here. Currently, the VMware Capacity Planner product can be leveraged to offer high-value assessment services for the datacenter or desktop environments, such as:

• Consolidation Estimates (CE): Optimized for conducting presales sizing estimates of a customer’s datacenter or desktop environment, CEs provide guidance on what can be achieved via virtualization and consolidation assessments. CEs offer a simplified, guided workflow for VMware Capacity Planner with a defined methodology and process for sales professionals to conduct more sizing and lead generation activity.
• Capacity Assessments (CA): Optimized for Consultants and Professional Services organizations that want to conduct a deep-dive analysis into a customer’s datacenter or desktop environments. CAs provide a detailed roadmap on how customers can achieve an optimized, virtualized datacenter. Capacity Assessments show the implementation blueprint for actualizing the “to-be” state of the datacenter or desktop.

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The best/easiest approach to converting a Windows operating system from a physical machine to a virtual machine is to perform a hot migration with VMware Converter installed locally on the source (physical machine) operating system. Below an overview of the different steps involved in a P2V (Physical to Virtual) conversion. Note that these steps only apply to Windows operating systems.

 BEFORE CONVERSION

• Confirm that the source server has at least 200 MB free disk space on its system volume. This space is required to operate the disk snapshot features in VMware Converter
• Confirm that the source machine has at least 364 MB RAM
• If you have software mirroring, break the mirror (but not the data) since VMware converter does not support software mirrors.
• Clean-up any temporary files and un-needed data
• Change all hardware related services to “disabled” startup mode
• Download the following utilities/scripts and install them to the directory c:\Temp\P2Von the source server. The following files are included:
  • p1-HWPhysical.bat
  • p2-installP2VConverter.bat
  • p3-SystemConfigUtil.bat
  • v1-HWVirtual.bat
  • v2-vmprofile.bat
  • v3-enablehdwacc.bat
  • v3-enablehdwacc.vbs
  • v4-renameNICs.bat
  • v4-renameNICs.vbs
  • v5-setip.bat
  • v6-uninstallP2Vconverter.bat
  • v7-SystemConfigUtil.bat
  • v8-hiddendevices.bat
  • v9-HALupdate.bat
  • PSPCleaner.exe
  • comm.exe
  • libiconv2.dll
  • libintl3.dll
  • devcon.exe
  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.01 build 161434 (See also http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/)
• Log on to the source machine (mstsc -v: servername /F -console) with a local administrator account and open a command window
• Run c:\Temp\P2V\p1-HWPhysical.bat
  •  The script creates a list of all devices of the physical machine (including non-present devices)
• Install the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone software by executing c:\Temp\P2V\p2-installP2VConverter.bat
• Run the System Configuration Utility on the source server by executing c:\Temp\P2V\p3-SystemConfigUtil.bat to reduce the number of services and applications running on startup (all software except for all Microsoft Services and VMware Converter Service).
  • On the General tab
    • Select “Selective Startup
    • Uncheck “Load Startup Items”
  • On the Services tab
    • Select “Hide All Microsoft Services”
    • Click “Disable All”
    • Mark the VMware vCenter Converter Agent
    • Mark the VMware vCenter Converter Server
  • Click “Apply”
  • Click “Close”
  • Click “Restart

CONVERSION

• Log on to the source machine with a local administrator account
• Start the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone application (A shortcut should be available on the desktop)
• Select “Convert Machine”
• Specify Source
  • Select source Type: Powered-on machine
  • Specify the powered-on machine: This local machine
  • Click NEXT
• Specify Destination
  •  Destination Type
    • Select destination type: VMware Infrastructure virtual machine
    • VMware Infrastructure details
      • Server: type in the IP address of the ESX server you want to convert to (or of your Virtual Center server)
      • User name: type the user name of an administrative account for the above server
      • Password: type the password of the above user name
      • Click NEXT
  • Host/Resource
    • Select the ESX host/group you want to convert to
    • Virtual machine name: type the name of the destination virtual machine (this is normally already set)
    • Datasource: select the datastore in which to place the destination virtual machine
    • Click NEXT
• View/Edit Options
  • Data to copy
    • Keep the defaults unless you need to re-size the partitions
    • Select “Ignore page file and hibernation file”
  • Devices
    • Select the number of processors: adapt if needed (Remember to revert the HAL after conversion if you are changing from a multi-processor to a uni-processor machine)
    • Disk controller: select SCSI LSI logic for Windows 2003 and beyond
    • Memory for this virtual machine: adapt if needed
  • Network adapters
    • Choose the number of network adapters you need
    • Select the appropriate VLAN
    • Select Connect at power-on
  • Services
    • Go to tab “Destination Services”
    • Change starting mode to “Disabled” for all services you will not need in the virtual machine
  • Advanced options
    • De-select “Synchronize changes that occur to the source during cloning”
    • De-select “Power on target machine”
    • De-select “Install VMware Tools on the imported machine”
    • Select “Remove System Restore checkpoints on destination”
    • Select “Reconfigure destination virtual machine”
  • Click NEXT
• Ready to Complete
  • Review the summary information
  • Click NEXT

AFTER CONVERSION

• Shut down the physical machine
• Use the VI client to log on to your virtual center server or to your ESX server
• Review and adjust the virtual hardware settings:
  • Adjust the number of NICs, CPUs, RAM, …
  • Remove any unnecessary devices such as serial ports, USB controllers, COM ports, floppy drives, …
• Start the virtual machine
• Log on to the virtual machine
• Run c:\Temp\P2V\v1-HWVirtual.bat
  • Creates a list of all devices that matches the virtual machine
  • Compares the list of all devices of the physical machine (created in the step “before conversion” with the list of all devices that matches the virtual machine (created in the previous step)
  • Removes all phantom hardware
  • Rescans hardware
  • Reboots the  server
• Change registry key regarding profile problem in VMware (see VMware article) by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v2-vmprofile.bat
• Enable Video Hardware Acceleration by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v3-enablehdwacc.bat (this command calls the vbs script c:\Temp\P2V\enablehdwacc.vbs)
• Rename your network connections by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v4-renameNICs.bat (this command calls the vbs script c:\Temp\P2V\renameNICs.vbs)
• Set IP information on the first network connection by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v5-setip.bat  %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7
• From this step on you should be able to connect to the virtual server via RDP
• Uninstall VMware vCenter Converter Standalone by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v6-uninstallP2Vconverter.bat
• If you are converting from HP Proliant hardware you can clean up the HP hardware related drivers, utilities, agents using the HP Proliant Support Pack Cleaner from Guillermo Musumeci. Execute c:\Temp\P2V\PSPCleaner.exe
• Run the System Configuration Utility on the virtual server by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v7-SystemConfigUtil.bat, select the “normal startup” option and reboot your server
• Show all hidden devices and uninstall any unused devices by executing c:\Temp\P2V\v8-hiddendevices.bat
  • Select show hidden devices
  • Check if there are still unused devices present and uninstall them manually
• Update the HAL if you changed from multi to uniprocessor by executing the script c:\Temp\P2V\v9-HALupdate.bat
• Reboot your server
• Install VMware Tools

Please also read the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0 Release Notes at http://www.vmware.com/support/converter/doc/releasenotes_conv40.html