Groupings
What is a grouping Copied
Groupings are slices of data collected by a particular attribute. Each attribute forms a single grouping and is drawn as a ring on your . All rings are concentric, with the centre circle forming its own grouping. Groupings can represent any entity that you wish to monitor in your IT infrastructure, such as physical servers, hosts, clusters, applications, server types, tiers, VM state, and so on.
Default grouping values are automatically uploaded from your Capacity Planner chosen monitoring tool. For example, vCenter and Geneos have tags and attributes, respectively. These are automatically brought into Capacity Planner
Configuring Baseline View using grouping values provides you with the ability to view the summary data for the baseline in a number of ways depending on your business needs. For example, you can arrange the groupings in the Baseline View to view the data by application, by component, or by environment. Adding more groupings to the Baseline View creates a sophisticated view of exactly how your VMs are being tasked across your IT infrastructure to help you make more informed decisions about your business.
For more information on how groupings are displayed on the interface, see Sunburst user interface.
Available groupings Copied
You can check all the groupings that are available in your model. To do this, open the Groupings configuration panel from the panel list to the left of the sunburst. The configuration panel allows you to change the groupings displayed in the Baseline View.
The panel is split into two sections: Active at the top, and Available at the bottom:
- Active — groupings that are currently displayed in the sunburst, in order from the centre to the outer ring.
- Available — all available groupings that are not currently displayed but can be added.
Upload new groupings Copied
Groupings and grouping values that come from data sources (for example, attributes in Geneos ) or CSV files, can be added or edited through a properties file. To make changes to the grouping values, contact your account representative for a copy of the properties file.
The properties file cannot be used to remove grouping values. To remove grouping values from entities that are currently in your model, contact your account representative.
To see how to manage groupings added for the machines you have in your setup, see Groupings manager.
How to update the properties file Copied
The properties file is a simple CSV with a unique identifier for each entity that is managed by Capacity Planner.
Any column added to this file is treated as a new grouping. Identify the entities that you wish to have a value for that grouping and enter that into the properties file. When complete, return the file to your account representative who will ensure it is added to your environment.
Make sure that only entities that should have a value for a grouping are given a value. If an entity in a row in the CSV file does not have a value for the given grouping, simply leave it blank.
To avoid potentially confusing sunburst configurations, it is best to ensure that hosts and virtual machines do not share groupings. Nonetheless, if you want hosts and VMs to share groupings, then is it recommended that you introduce a separate host grouping and VM grouping column into the properties file.
Groupings manager Copied
The Groupings Manager allows you to create and manage groupings from the machines that you have in Capacity Planner. It allows you to create your own groupings to slice and dice the sunburst further.
To add a grouping using the Groupings Manager:
- Right-click any segment in the sunburst and click Groupings Manager.
You can see all machines and servers from this point on (for example, from this cluster down). - In the list, find the desired server. This can be done in one of the following ways:
- The list is sorted alphabetically so you can scroll it to find your machine.
- You can use the filter by typing a substring of text. When you start typing a server name, the list gets filtered automatically.
- Using advanced filtering, you can find servers with a specific grouping value. Typing a grouping value after the colon
:
lists the servers with that particular grouping value. For example:"Business Application":Exchange
.
You can also string grouping values together.
- Select the server or servers. You can select multiple servers by holding the
CTRL
key.
Existing grouping values for these servers are displayed in the two columns. You can expand the columns to see the values.- You can type new grouping values for each server.
- To apply the same value to multiple servers, click a value and drag it across other rows to apply it to multiple rows at a time.
- Click Add Custom Grouping to create a grouping based on your selection.
- Provide a name and save your changes.
- Assign new values to your grouping. For example:
Your new grouping now appears in the Available section of the grouping lists. You can drag it onto the sunburst.
Note
When you add a new grouping, you are making changes to the database. These changes cannot be reverted.
Note
It is often the case that grouping values are provided via a regular data upload. If a grouping that is provided in such a way is modified or deleted using the grouping manager, it will be reinstated to the original value upon the next successful data processing.
Add a grouping to the sunburst Copied
Baseline View displays three groupings by default: data centres, clusters, and hosts. If you want to break down your data into greater levels of detail, you can add more groupings.
To add a grouping to the sunburst, follow the steps:
-
From the configuration panel list on the left, click Groupings. The Groupings panel opens with two sections: Active and Available.
-
You can add a grouping in two ways:
- Drag the desired grouping from the Available list to the Active list.
- Click Options next to the grouping and then click Activate.
The Baseline View is redrawn to account for the new data. A new ring is added to the Baseline View to represent the added grouping and it is automatically split into the corresponding hierarchical segments. These segments represent the grouping values.
Note
All of your usage data is hierarchical when viewed in the Baseline View. Groupings you add to the Baseline View are drawn from where you add them. A new grouping is always drawn as child data of the grouping you release it over, so it is important where you add the new grouping.
You can also change the values that are displayed in the sunburst. For details, see Change the displayed grouping values.
Remove a grouping from the sunburst Copied
Too many groupings can lead to too much data. Removing groupings can help simplify your view over the IT infrastructure and help identify the areas that you need to focus on.
To remove a grouping, follow these steps:
- From the configuration panel list on the left, click Groupings. The Groupings panel opens with two sections: Active and Available.
- You can remove a grouping in two ways:
- Drag the required grouping from the Active list to the Available list.
- Click Options next to the grouping and then click Remove.
The grouping’s ring is removed from the Baseline View, and some segments in other groupings may be removed to maintain the hierarchy between groupings.
Note
All of your usage data is hierarchical when viewed in the Baseline View. Groupings remaining on the Baseline View when you remove one will rearrange themselves. Groupings to either side of the removed grouping will redraw themselves to maintain the hierarchical view of the Baseline View. If the grouping currently shown in the centre circle is removed, the sunburst resets to the top level.
Change the displayed grouping values Copied
Grouping values represent the values of your entities. If a grouping represents a host, then the grouping values will be the exact hosts present in your IT infrastructure.
By default, all grouping values are added to the Baseline View when you add a grouping. However, you can opt to remove or add back values. To change the displayed grouping values, follow these steps:
- From the configuration panel list on the left, click Groupings. The Groupings panel opens with two sections: Active and Available.
- Click Options next to the grouping and then click Select values.
- From the list of available grouping values, select the ones that you want to be displayed in the sunburst.
The Baseline View is redrawn to account for the new data.
Reorder the groupings in the sunburst Copied
By default, the Baseline View is arranged by three groupings: data centre, cluster, and host. Rearranging your groupings on the Baseline View can help simplify your view and bring the key areas of focus to your attention.
To reorder the groupings, follow these steps:
- From the configuration panel list on the left, click Groupings. The Groupings panel opens with two sections: Active and Available.
- Select the required grouping from the Active list and drag it to a different position.
The Baseline View is redrawn to account for the new hierarchy. The segments rearrange themselves and redraw their child VMs.
Note
All of your usage data is hierarchical when viewed in the Baseline View. Groupings you move around the Baseline View redraw themselves with new parent and child relationships, relative to where you move them to. No new data is added to the chart. You are instead now viewing the same data from a different perspective.
Activity grouping Copied
Activity grouping is a dynamic grouping value which is calculated depending on the statistical demand profile of CPU, Memory, and IO metrics in the selected model.
The grouping can be added to the sunburst in the same way as any other grouping. When added, the sunburst displays a label that indicates the machine’s activity.
The values and labels for this grouping are:
- High — CPU 95th percentile > 70%
- Low — CPU 95th percentile >= 5% and < 30%
- Idle
- CPU 95th percentile < 5%
- IO 95th percentile < 20% of configured capacity (default 1GB)
- Memory 99th percentile < 10%
- Normal — providing data but not in either of the above categories.
- Unknown — workload is not providing data so it is not possible to calculate activity.
When the model is changed (for example, from baseline summary to monthly summary), the value of the activity grouping gets updated based on the statistical profile of the metrics in that selected model.
VM State grouping Copied
We recommend that Activity grouping is used in conjunction with the VM State grouping.
The VM State grouping value is determined based on the Last heard date which is the last time the data was received about this particular machine or workload.
- If nothing has been provided to describe the configuration of the machine in over three days, the value is set to
removed
, and the machine is assumed to no longer exist. - If the machine is still currently present in the environment and providing data daily, the value of this grouping is set to
current
, and the machine is assumed to be active in the estate.
By combining Activity with VM State grouping, it is possible to view all machines that are currently running but could be switched off or right-sized, either upwards or downwards.
Cloud service grouping Copied
You can differentiate between instances or machines that make use of various cloud services using the Cloud Service grouping. This can be used in the sunburst, timeburst and reporting to identify EC2 or RDS machines.