HPE InfoSight is an HPE cloud service that allows you to proactively identify potential reliability and performance issues with HPE Nimble and HPE 3PAR arrays. At the same time, the service can also immediately recommend ways to eliminate possible problems, and in some cases, the elimination of problems can be performed proactively, in automatic mode.
We have already talked about HPE InfoSight on HABR, see, for example, or .
In this post, I want to talk about one new feature of HPE InfoSight - Resource Planner.
HPE InfoSight Resource Planner is a powerful new tool that helps customers determine whether they can add new workloads or applications to their arrays based on existing workloads. Will the array handle the increase in load, or will a new array be needed? If you need a new array, then what? Predictive modeling Resource Planner helps you accurately understand the needs and properly sizing an upgrade of an existing array or sizing a new array.
The scheduler allows you to do the following:
- model potential changes to existing workloads;
- evaluate the impact on array resources such as processor, capacity, and cache;
- View results for different array models.
By collecting statistics and parametric information about array performance (over the entire installed array base) and analyzing various workloads in many client environments, we can identify certain causal and quantitative relationships. For example, we know how deduplication affects CPU usage across different array models. We know that Virtual Desktop environments are better deduplicated and compressed than SQL. We know that Exchange applications tend to have a higher percentage of sequential (as opposed to random) reads than Virtual Desktop. Using this information, we can model the impact of load changes to predict resource requirements for a particular array model.
How the Scheduler works - let's look at the following examples.
Resource Planner launches in the HPE InfoSight portal under LABS. Let's start by selecting a new workload - Add New Workload (in addition to the existing one). Another option we'll look at later is Add Existing Workload.
Select the load category/application:
If necessary, you can make various changes to the new workload: data volume, IOPs, workload type, and deduplication mode.
Next, select the array (from the customer's) for which we want to model this new workload and click the Analyze button.
The bottom line is the impact of this new proposed workload (in addition to the current workload) on CPU resources and capacity. If we had chosen a hybrid flash array, we would also see the effect on the array cache, but in this case we have an AF60 all flash array, for which the concept of cache memory (on an SSD) does not apply.
We see (on the right, in the upper diagram - CPU needs) that the AF60 array, for which we planned a new load, does not have enough processor resources to handle the new workload: when a new load is added, the CPUs will be utilized by 110%. The bottom diagram (Capacity needs) shows that there is enough capacity for the new load. In addition to the AF60 array, both diagrams also show other array models for comparison with what would happen if we had a different array.
The following picture shows what happens when we check the display multiple head shelves checkbox (an option when selecting a source array). This option allows you to analyze several identical arrays. It can be seen that for a total (new and existing) load, one AF80 array, or two AF60 arrays, or three AF40 arrays is enough.
Using the resource scheduler, you can also simulate a change in only the current load. To do this, in the first step, you need to select add existing workload (instead of add new workload - as we did at the beginning). Next, you can simulate a change in the existing load and see what it will lead to. The example below simulates doubling the load and doubling the capacity for applications like File Server (i.e., in this example, we do not increase the entire load on the array, but increase the load only for a particular type of application).
In this case, you can see that the array resources allow you to double the load for File Server applications, but no more than double - because. processor resources will be utilized by 99%.
Source: habr.com