VMware Capacity Planner Assessment Service

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.

VMWare Capacity Planner

For an overview of capacity planner please read this article.

VMware Capacity Planner Assessment Service (CE)

VMware Capacity Planner Architecture

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