What-If VM Deployment Planning for Hyper-V (model existing VMs)

This report calculates the number of additional VMs that your existing infrastructure (Hyper-V storage and clusters) can support before the resource utilization reaches the specified threshold value.

Description

The What-If VM Deployment Planning for Hyper-V (model existing VMs) report evaluates total capacity of your infrastructure and provides estimation of how many sample VMs of a certain profile can be added without causing the specified resource utilization threshold to be breached. In this report, you can choose sample VMs from the existing environment.

The report analyzes historical performance data for the specified period in the past, calculates the performance utilization trend and applies it to the forecast horizon. Calculation of additional VM sets is based on the predicted future performance of the sample VMs and the predicted virtual infrastructure capacities.

Note

To make a prediction for the vCpuCount counter, the report analyzes the current vCpuCount value, not historical performance data.

Parameters

Performance Data From: defines a date in the past starting from which historical performance data will be used for calculating the performance utilization trend. The report analyzes historical performance data starting from this date to the current date (data collection period).

Note

To make a forecast, the report must use historical performance data for at least 72 hours.

Forecast Horizon: defines the forecast period. The calculated performance utilization trend is applied to the time period that starts from the current date to the forecast horizon date.

Note

The date in the Forecast Horizon field must be a date in future.

Scope: defines a list of Groups or Objects that will be analyzed in the report (by default, the Veeam Hyper-V Hosts Group and Veeam Hyper-V Cluster Disks Group are selected).

Important

Objects of the Veeam Hyper-V Hosts Group and Veeam Hyper-V Cluster Disks Group are described with different related metrics. That is why consider the following to evaluate your Hyper-V infrastructure properly:

  • The Veeam Hyper-V Cluster Disks Group includes not only storage disks, but also volumes. That is why, to evaluate storage free space and IOPS, select the Veeam Hyper-V Cluster Disks Group in the Scope section, and specify the Threshold: Storage Volume Free Space and Threshold: Storage IOPS thresholds.
  • To evaluate memory and CPU utilization, select the Veeam Hyper-V Hosts Group in the Scope section, and specify the Threshold: CPU Utilization (%), Threshold: Used Memory (%) or Threshold: vCPUs per Core thresholds.

Workload: defines a VM profile that will be used as a sample for calculating the number of VM sets. If you choose one VM, the report will calculate how many similar VMs can be added. If you choose several VMs, the report will calculate how many similar VM sets can be added.

The object picker control for the report workload has a predefined filter which limits selection to Objects of the Hyper-V Virtual Machine (Veeam MP) class and Groups that include objects of the Hyper-V Virtual Machine (Veeam MP) class.

Threshold: CPU Utilization (%): defines the CPU usage threshold as a percentage of total cluster CPU resources.

Threshold: Used Memory (%): defines the used memory threshold as a percentage of total cluster memory resources.

Threshold: Storage Volume Free Space: defines the free space threshold as a percentage of total available volume space.

Threshold: Storage IOPS: defines storage IOPS threshold.

Tip

To identify the IOPS limit at which your storage device may experience abnormal latency, you can use the Hyper-V Storage Performance Profile Analysis report.

Threshold: vCPUs per Core: defines the threshold for vCPU cores per a single instance of the physical CPU core.

Sample Usage

Forecast how many VMs of the specified profile can be added to your storage taking into account storage capacity. Make sure that the free space threshold will not breach 20% within the next 30 days. Use the historical performance data for the previous month for report analysis.

Instructions

  1. Open the What-If VM Deployment Planning for Hyper-V (model existing VMs) report.
  2. From the Performance Data From list, select Previous Month > First Day.
  3. From the Forecast Horizon list, select a date in future (30 days from today).
  4. In the Scope section, exclude Veeam Hyper-V Hosts Group from the report scope (select the group and click Remove) to search for available storage only.
  5. In the Workload section, search for the VM that will be used as a sample. Click Add Object. In the Add Object window, click Search. The search will return a list of objects that belong to the Hyper-V Virtual Machine (Veeam MP) class. Select the necessary VM in the list, click Add and click OK.
  6. In the Threshold: Storage Volume Free Space field, enter 20.
  7. Click Run to view the report.

Report Output

The Virtual Infrastructure Described table will provide an overview for all volumes included in the report scope: total number of volumes and total storage capacity.

The Sample Workload Described table will provide an overview for the virtual machine used as a sample for calculating the number of VM sets: total number of VMs, total CPUs, total CPU usage, memory usage and storage usage and number of IOPS.

The Constraining Resource per Each Object table will provide the following details for every volume and disk:

Column

Description

Name

Name of the volume/disk.

Constraining Resource

Resource for which the specified threshold will be breached first within the forecast period.

For example, both CPU Utilization (%) and Used Memory (%) thresholds will be breached within the forecast period and the CPU Usage (%) is reported to be breached first. In this case, the report will display CPU Usage as the constraining resource. However, the Recommendations will be provided both for CPU Utilization and Used Memory resources.

Possible Capacity

Number of additional VMs of the specified profile that your storage will be able to support on the forecast horizon date (that is, at the end of the forecast period).

Details

Report details will provide in-depth forecast information for every volume and disk included in the report scope.

The Performance Forecast section will show a details table for each analyzed storage resource:

Column

Description

Aspect

Name of the analyzed resource.

Threshold

Specified threshold value.

Capacity

Total storage capacity.

Predicted Usage

Predicted amount of free space left on the storage after the new VM sets are added.

The report provides both absolute value and relative value (as a percentage of total capacity).

VM Sets that Can Be Added

Number of additional VMs of the specified profile that the storage will be able to support on the forecast horizon date (that is, at the end of the forecast period).