Benefits of Deploying VirtualWisdom with HP Converged Infrastructure March, 2015

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1 Benefits of Deploying VirtualWisdom with HP Converged Infrastructure March, 2015 Version 1

2 Introduction: Yesterday was Silos, Today is integrated! Business needs today can't be met with yesterday's IT. Legacy IT architecture perpetuates silos and complexity through an overload of products and tools that lack interoperability. HP Converged Infrastructure (CI) meets the need by bringing storage, servers, networking, and management together simply engineered to work as one. The result is simplified, yet powerful IT that s energy and space efficient, less expensive to operate, and aligns to meet the needs of the business for any workload at any scale. Virtual Instruments the leader in Infrastructure Performance Management is the performance monitoring choice for organizations adopting converged infrastructure. Virtual Instruments IPM platform VirtualWisdom was built from the ground up to unify the monitoring of dynamic converged infrastructures and traditional data center resources. VirtualWisdom adds a built in diagnostic port into the converged infrastructure that collects, computes and tracks metrics to provide both real- time monitoring and historical trend analysis of overall performance, availability, and utilization of the converged infrastructure. VirtualWisdom collects data from three key sources: 1. From the Fibre Channel switches 2. From VMware vcenter servers and 3. From the headers of Fibre Channel frames IT Operations teams now have a single, service- centric agnostic view into the performance and availability of converged infrastructure server virtualization, network, and storage components. Version 1

3 The primary business benefits of VirtualWisdom come from three areas: 1. Operational Efficiency Performance Management: VirtualWisdom ability to measure application performance in real- time provides the insight required to define and deliver on true performance- based SLAs, reducing system- wide latency, proactively preventing outages, and dramatically improving resource utilization. 2. Optimize Infrastructure Resources Cost Optimization: VI guarantees that applications IO requirements are aligned to the right resources in the converged infrastructure. This results in driving the highest performance at the lowest cost. 3. Ensure IT Service Reliability Availability Management: By proactively detecting issues before the business is impacted, VI customers report a 90% reduction in trouble tickets in the first 90 days and severity one issue are eliminated completely. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 1

4 VirtualWisdom Product Overview The VirtualWisdom4 Platform is composed of a fully integrated combination of VirtualWisdom Management Software, and a purpose- built Platform Appliance. This powerful combination of hardware and software, all fully developed, integrated and tested in- house at Virtual Instruments, ensures the highest levels of performance, scalability and serviceability. Leveraging a unique combination of software and hardware probes, the platform persists, correlates and analyzes a breadth and depth of data never before possible collected from throughout the end- to- end converged infrastructure. This highly accurate and comprehensive solution enables customers to stop reactive troubleshooting, start managing performance and achieve cost optimization. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 2

5 Eliminating Converged Infrastructure concerns with VirtualWisdom: There are many benefits for converged infrastructure like proven design and speed of deployment; however, change can create a cause for concern within an organization. Below is a list of a few of these concerns and how VI can debunk these myths and fears: Migrating critical applications to a Converged Infrastructure: Application owners many times express concerns that moving their application into a converged infrastructure will effect overall performance and integrity of their applications. These concerns can be eliminated with VirtualWisdom ability to baseline the applications performance before the implementation, then once moved VirtualWisdom will continue to monitor the application guaranteeing its performance and availability. Running out of shared resources: With converged infrastructure, there is only one shared pool of resources. This can be disconcerting for application owners who are worried that someone else s application will starve theirs for resources. This risk can be easily mitigated with VirtualWisdom end- to- end monitoring capabilities of the applications resources, SLA s will always be maintained and needed resources will always available. Can change create problems: Of course any changes always raises concern, Is support going to be an issue? Are abstraction layers, virtualization, and cloud going to limit infrastructure visibility? Am I losing control of my applications? These all valid concerns and that is why it is important to have VirtualWisdom providing real- time visibility into the performance, availability and health of the entire converged infrastructure environment No longer will IT be chasing issues, visibility challenges will be eliminated and real- time monitoring ensures application performance is maintained. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 3

6 HP Converged Infrastructure - everything works better together One of the big differences with HP Converged Infrastructure is that it's not a 'one size fits all' approach. HP s broad portfolio has been engineered to help customers gain the value of convergence based upon their unique requirements. HP has built a portfolio that includes a broad range of "best- in- class" solution partners who have validated their applications in the HP Converged Infrastructure environment. Virtual Instruments has been chosen as the Infrastructure Performance Monitoring platform in the HP converged Infrastructure portfolio, below is a list of some of the categories VirtualWisdom fits into and the benefit VirtualWisdom delivers. VirtualWisdom Converged Infrastructure Solutions: 1. Cloud > Infrastructure Performance Management - With the increasing use of cloud computing, system administrators are facing new challenges. A private cloud like any other cloud depends on the efficiency and dependability of the IT infrastructure. This means that the IT department must look into the capacity requirements of each application in the planning stages of the cloud in order to calculate resources to meet the demand. Virtual Instruments; VirtualWisdom 4 Infrastructure Performance Monitoring platform adds many benefits to organizations building a private cloud with a converged infrastructure. VirtualWisdom can baseline applications workloads before moving into the cloud VirtualWisdom data helps lead in the design of the HP Converged Infrastructure to ensure workloads are aligned to appropriate resources VirtualWisdom real- time performance monitoring of applications once moved into the cloud, proactively protects the applications to ensure continuous availability and performance. Summary: VirtualWisdom can baseline and validate existing SLA s and ensure sizing, and SLA s commitments are still maintained once applications are moved into an HP converged cloud infrastructure. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 4

7 2. Converged Infrastructure > Virtualized Servers Cost Optimization - The virtualization of servers is ubiquitous in data centers today, and the cost benefits of server virtualization are very real and well understood by most business. However, many businesses have struggled to meet the financial goals projected by their server virtualization initiatives, this has been for a variety of reasons, most because of application performance concerns. Reluctance by the business to virtualize certain applications due to concerns regarding performance and availability. The number of virtualized applications that are hosted on a physical server is often limited by performance concerns, which ultimately means that more physical servers are required to support the virtualized applications Moving critical applications into a cloud converged infrastructure, application performance and arability control are lost. VirtualWisdom provides the ability to ensure that performance meets the needs of the business by facilitating the use of performance based SLAs. This allows more applications to be virtualized and ensures that the capacity of the physical server is used to its maximum potential resulting in reduced operating and capital costs. Increasing the number of applications that get virtualized (i.e. increasing the adoption rate) and increasing the number of applications running per physical machine (i.e. increasing server virtualization density) will lead to fewer physical machines which in- turn decreases both operating and capital costs of the server infrastructure. Summary: VirtualWisdom allows a business to proactively manage performance so that I/O performance does not artificially constrain either the adoption rate or density of virtual server deployments. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 5

8 3. Virtualization > Storage Tiering Optimization Picking the right storage tier can be very risky and costly, many IT teams rely on vendor best practices and rules of thumb when establishing rules for their tiered storage environment because they lack performance instrumentation of their Fibre Channel storage environment. For instance, some IT teams will host Oracle databases served by UNIX/LINUX hosts only on Tier 1 storage, while all the Windows applications will be served by Tier 2 storage. This is done rather arbitrarily, without regard to the real performance requirements of the application. With VirtualWisdom s, best guess practices can be replaced with detailed views that provide deep insight into real- time I/O performance and SLA compliance. VirtualWisdom customers have found that this level of verifiable insight empowers them to deliver Tier 1 SLAs with less- costly Tier 2 storage devices. The cost benefits here can be very compelling, as the price difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 storage can be significant. Using less expensive storage can result in $5K- $10K per terabyte savings and reduce overall storage costs by up to 60%. Summary: With VirtualWisdom, IT organizations have the performance data and other information needed to properly plan and optimize their tiered storage environment, so best guess practices can be replaced with actual data to make precise business decisions regarding application storage requirements, enabling them to realize huge CAPEX improvements. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 6

9 4. Database > Oracle Migration - Whether migrating to a new data center, upgrading a SAN or deploying new storage arrays, an Oracle migration project is never a trivial task. Oracle OLTP systems typically support business- critical processes, while Oracle warehouses handle large data volumes and essential analysis. Downtime in an Oracle environment can be extremely costly, sometimes reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour. Using the VirtualWisdom platform, teams can benchmark performance before and after the migration and promptly fix any problems that might derail the project during the migration. Downtime in an Oracle environment can be extremely costly, sometimes reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour. Using the VirtualWisdom platform, teams can streamline the migration, by benchmark performance before and after the migration and promptly fix any problems that might derail the project during the migration. Best Practice #1 Benchmarking Existing Performance Before performing any migration, use VirtualWisdom to establish the baseline performance on the existing infrastructure. Best Practice #2 Performing Pre- migration Troubleshooting Analysis By testing and addressing these issues before the transition you reduce the risk of outages, slowdowns and project delays. Best Practice #3 Comparing Post- migration Performance Once you have successfully made the migration, use VirtualWisdom to benchmark the performance of each application and compare it to the pre- migration performance. Best Practice #4 Establishing Application- Specific SLAs Using VirtualWisdom, you can establish separate SLAs for each application or component. For example, you could set separate performance level thresholds (such as 5 millisecond response times) for Oracle ERP and CRM applications, and create alerts for faults Summary: VirtualWisdom provides unprecedented visibility into performance across the entire Oracle converged infrastructure, from the application to the storage. Using VirtualWisdom to baseline and track application performance before, during and after a major Oracle migration will streamline the project and ensure successful migration. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 7

10 VirtualWisdom Configurations for HP Converged Infrastructure: 1. HP Converged, Performance Service Bundle This comprehensive service engagement can be focused on a variety of desired outcomes, from assessing the baseline benchmarking, to capacity planning, performance tuning, risk assessment and mitigation. The purpose of the service is to conduct comprehensive SAN monitoring and analysis of mission- critical applications, in the converged infrastructure to help identify existing performance or availability problems, and to help identify areas of potential risk. The service can be performed as a general assessment or to facilitate a specific project such as a migration into a converged infrastructure, a Storage Tiering project, Virtualization initiative or technology refresh. It includes a portable assessment kit that includes all the VirtualWisdom components required to perform a 1 week non- disruptive, agentless data collection, the results are then analyzed and recommendations are made based on service objectives and goals. The cost of this service is returned many- fold by identifying areas to optimize existing assets and right- size future deployments. 2. HP Converged, Performance Enabled Bundle VI Ready This service can be focused on a variety of desired outcomes, from assessing the baseline benchmarking, to capacity planning, performance tuning, risk assessment and mitigation. Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 8

11 Summary VirtualWisdom gives you the ability to track and monitor performance from the application through the converged infrastructure, and to pinpoint and resolve problems before they become serious. This new visibility reduces the risk of infrastructure change and protects critical application performance and investments. Virtual Instruments 25 Metro Drive, Suite 400 San Jose, CA Phone: Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 9

12 2015 Virtual Instruments. All rights reserved. Features and specifications are subject to change without notice 01/15 Virtual Instruments Converged Infrastructure Whitepaper 10