A TRUE CAPACITY PLAN IS A PROCESS NOT AN EVENT

1
A TRUE CAPACITY PLAN IS A PROCESSNOT AN EVENT

• Joe Bell
• Senior Staff Regional Systems Engineer
• Fujitsu Technology Solutions Inc.
• joe_bell_at_ftsi.fujitsu.com
• 816-509-4084

04/29/03
2
Agenda

• A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes
• Mainframe days
• Open Systems beginnings
• Whats changed?
• Why do we need Capacity Planning?
• Basic Capacity Plan Process Components
• Workload Analysis
• Forecasting
• Construct base plan and options
• Revision and Technology Inputs
• Procurement Analysis
• Reporting
• Refinement

3
Agenda -continued

• Erector Set Theory
• Planning
• Production
• Verification
• Implementation
• Maintenance
• Continuous Process Improvement
• A Complete Process -top down
• A Shortcut Process -bottom up
• Summary
• References

4
A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes

• Mainframe days
• The Five Stages of Capacity Planning - Pat Artis
• Stage 1 - Vendor control
• Reporting Level -gt Corporate Decision Makers
  (CIOs, Directors)
• Written Documentation/Plans -gt Marketing
  Proposals
• Relation to Corporate Budget -gt Synchronized to
  budget cycle for hardware line items
• End User Considerations -gt Little to none
• Continuity -gt Long Term Vendor Marketing Plan
• Tools -gt Rules of Thumb and Vendor Aids/Tools
  (proprietary)
• Stage 2 - Special Studies
• Written Documentation/Plans -gt Three to Five year
  Plans
• End User Considerations -gt Initial Discussions,
  business overviews
• Continuity -gt None - One Time Study
• Tools -gt Rules of Thumb, Vendor Aids/Tools, Ad
  Hoc (build your own)

5
A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes
-continued

• Mainframe days -continued
• The Five Stages of Capacity Planning - Pat Artis
• Stage 3 - Technician
• Reporting Level -gt First Level Technical
  Supervisors
• Written Documentation/Plans -gt Reams of detailed
  technical information, graphics, ..
• Relation to Corporate Budget -gt Typically none
• End User Considerations -gt Ineffective surveys or
  none
• Continuity -gt Ongoing effort
• Tools -gt Extensive tool development and
  acquisition
• Stage 4 - Organizational Development
• Reporting Level -gt Technical Services /
  Operations
• Written Documentation/Plans -gt One/ two year
  plans distributed to management levels
• Relation to Corporate Budget -gt Timed to serve
  the budget cycle
• End User Considerations -gt Basic business
  requirements understanding
• Continuity -gt SLRs created maintained, long
  range strategies developed
• Tools -gt Continued refinement
• Stage 5 - Mature
• Reporting Level -gt CIO
• Relation to Corporate Budget -gt Current and
  future budget inputs

6
A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes
-continued

• Open Systems beginnings
• Disjoint acquisition by end users and
  applications
• No single point of budget management
• Plethora of platforms for UNIX(es) and even NT
• Hardware cheap, just add more to solve CP and PM
• Learning new technologies and network techniques
• Life Blood applications generally still on the
  mainframe
• If any CP, then Stage 1, 2 or 3

7
A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes
-continued

• Whats changed?
• Movement of disjoint departmental systems to the
  Glass House
• Server Consolidations for platform and management
  efficiencies
• Systems becoming more reliable and dependable
• A handful of sophisticated high reliability, high
  performance Unix platforms (HPUX, AIX,
  Solaris,..)
• Win 2000 and XP handling larger sophisticated
  applications
• LINUX !!
• Not safe to just throw resources at capacity
  shortages
• Application, network and storage subsystem
  complexities
• Many examples of failures, just ask SPEs
• Just ask some .bombs and surviving .coms

8
A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes
-continued

• Whats changed?
• Application workloads growing at higher rates on
  open platforms
• Movement of Life Blood applications to open
  platforms
• Mainframes still do an excellent job, but at what
  cost?
• Most vendor RD directed to open platforms and
  supporting software
• Hey, that hardware isnt so cheap anymore!
• Same for the software
• LINUX current exception

9
A brief history of Capacity Planning Processes
-continued

• Why do we need Capacity Planning?
• You cant control what you cant measure
• You cant manage what you cant control
• Technology directions
• Can Contribute to Planned strategy versus chaos
• Budget expenditures
• Its easier to see where youre going if you know
  where youve been
• Instrumentation for critical management decisions
• Couple IT resources with Business Requirements
• Better support of the corporate business
  environment
• Just in time resource control for reduced
  expenditures
• Its Addressed in META Groups Best Practices
• for Monitoring Web Applications
• Improve the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Competitive Pricing
• Well configured and balanced systems for top
  Performance
• Fewer systems/Processors for simplified
  operations and Maintenance

10
Basic Capacity Plan Process Components

• Construct a Plan and Work the Plan
• Mission and Objectives
• Resource types (processor, memory, Disk, IO,
  Network)
• Long Term, Just-in-time
• Types of Servers
• User Community, Applications
• Define Functions and Activities
• Reporting
• Forecasting granularity
• SLAs
• Determine Required Resources and Tools
• People
• Tool analysis and proposed acquisition
• budget impact
• Construct Project Plan
• Define Deliverables
• Define Schedules
• OBTAIN MANAGEMENT BUY-IN APPROVAL

11
Basic Capacity Plan Process Components-continued

• Workload Analysis
• Define Analyze current environment resource
  requirements
• Processors, memory, Disk storage, Network
  bandwidth
• System OS, Database(s), subsystems
• Major application(s) (80/20 usually works)
• Types (OLTP, Background/batch, web enabled)
• SLAs
• Concurrent users
• Business drivers if available
• Performance Profile Requirements
• Peak versus Average utilization and ratios
• response time requirements for servers, storage,
  network and users
• Construct basic models
• Statistical correlation and prediction
• Analytical, simulation
• Can Workload Types be Balanced (CPU, memory , IO
  , network)
• Identify whats important to the customer/user
• Availability
• Response Time

12
Basic Capacity Plan Process Components-continued

• Conduct Forecasting Activities
• Historical analysis where appropriate
• Required for time series regressions
• Good to do anyway for information on historical
  activity
• Gather inputs from application development
  activities
• New applications
• New application functionality
• They probably wont have a feel for sizing, try
  similar and box car
• Get with Business Units that depend upon IT
  resources
• A well run business activity will have its own
  forecasts
• There may be units that will correlate to
  application resources
• Interview Upper Level Management for other
  information
• Utilize statistical or/and Analytical models
• Use Statistics for future based on history
• Use analytic for future based on current plus new
  event approximation

13
Basic Capacity Plan Process Components-continued

• Construct a basic Capacity Plan
• The Way Things Are
• History and current
• Annotated Graphs for events
• The Way Things Will Be
• Forecasts by application/server
• Annotated Graphs with events
• Requirements on resources due to business and
  application changes
• Options Analysis
• By resource youre covering (server, memory, IO,
  Disk, Network)
• By vendor/architecture within resource
• Use those that satisfy all business requirements,
  stds.
• Create an Executive Summary with all important
  issues
• Include a pricing section if you have any cost
  data
• Some organizations will keep this separate
• Some will require option pricing in the Capacity
  Plan

14
Basic Capacity Plan Process Components-continued

• Review Plan with regard to Infrastructure and
  Technology
• System, Subsystem and Network Plans
• New component resource deltas
• Additional overheads from functional enhancements
• Adjust CP options based on Technology or
  Architecture Plan
• New OS type(s), versions
• Three tier web enabled apps.
• ISCSI, NAS, SAN
• Gigabit network growth
• Include Disaster Recovery Requirements
• Asset Management Review and Option Pricing
  Adjustments
• If no Asset or Procurement Dept for this then get
  help from Financial Officer
• Include summary in Executive Overview

15
Basic Capacity Plan Process Components-continued

• Finish Plan and make reports/presentations
• Present to all possible levels of management
• Tech management
• Application management
• business management
• Director IT or CIO for final approval
• May have to go back and revisit options
• May have to perform budget cut activities against
  the plan
• Remember, work the plan.., because its not
  made out of concrete
• Stay flexible and keep emotion out of the final
  result.
• Capture data for variances against your plan
• Use root cause analysis for improvements to next
  plan
• 80/20 or 90/10, because little ROI on final
  percentage improvements
• Time to begin again..continuous cycle

16
Erector Set Theory

• A Manufacturing Approach to CP
• Planning
• customer requirements, scope and content,
  schedules, critical success factors, planning
  aids
• Construction
• Gather raw materials, create components, test
  individual components, distribute analysis to
  concerned parties, combine components
• Verification
• Component testability, discrete and measurable
  assumptions, coherency test, rework time
• Implementation
• Marketing and distribution for customer
  acceptance
• Maintenance
• Expect it, planned enhancements, monthly
  reporting (forecast to actual), periodic
  revisions
• Continuous Process Improvement -zero defect
  goal- process verification

17
Erector Set Theory -continued

• Underlying Tools and Methodologies
• Benchmarking
• Customer Interviews
• Basic Regression Analysis
• Advanced Regression Analysis
• Queueing Theory and Analytic Models
• Financial Analysis

18
A Complete Process -top down

• Capacity Plan Process
• Develop Master Schedule
• Construct Base Plan
• Collect Historical CPU Usage
• Collect Historical Memory Usage
• Collect Historical DASD Usage
• Build Baseline Models, Best/I
• Itemize Application Events
• Collect Business Indicators
• Itemize Other Events
• Size Application Events
• Develop Business Units or NFU Forecasts
• Size Other Events
• Build Consolidated Forecast
• Define Current Configurations
• Input the Technology Plan
• Determine Workload Placement
• Recommend Hardware Platforms
• Build Growth Models

19
A Complete Process -top down -continued

• Capacity Plan Process -continued
• Construct Consolidated Plan
• Distribute Base Plan to all CP and Tech personnel
• Input Disaster Recovery Plan
• Input Financial Analysis
• Input Facilities Plan
• Input Performance Management Plan
• Develop Plan Text
• Inputs from Project Implementation Groups
• Input Software Support Maintenance Plans
• Input Operations Plan
• Input Network Plan
• Input Hardware and Software Financial Analysis
• Consolidate Financial Impacts
• Consolidate Plan Document
• Obtain Executive Approval
• Distribute the Plan
• Conduct process measures and variance analysis

20
A Shortcut Process -bottom up

• Determine what the Plan Needs to Contain and
  Plan Structure
• Ascertain the Inputs for each section and develop
  the section

21
Summary

• A useable, accurate Capacity Plan Contains many
  coordinated activities.
• A CP is not a one time effort, but a continuous
  process of refinement and verification and
  revision.
• The depth of a CP will depend upon the amount of
  assets you are trying to forecast and the
  accuracy level demanded by management.

Construct a basic Capacity Plan
Integrate Infrastructure Tech requirements
Forecasting Modeling Activities
Variance Analysis and Refinement
Workload Analysis Data Gathering
Pricing Procurement Options
Begin
Reporting, Presentation Approvals
22
References

• Carroll, J. R. Cool, W. S., Surviving My First
  Client/Server, Distributed Systems Capacity
  Study, CMG94 Proceedings, 1994.
• Bell, J.E. McCord, D.W., ESTABLISHING A UNIX
  MID-RANGE CAPACITY AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
  ENVIRONMENT, CMG95 Proceedings, 1995.
• Olsen, L., Erector Set Theory, A Capacity
  Planning Approach, KCCMG, 1993.
• Howell, J., Workload Analysis, Fujitsu
  Technology Solutions RSE Training, 2003.
• Bell, J.E., The Origination, Evolution and
  Future of CRM, CMG89 Proceedings, 1989.
• Artis, P., The Five Stages of Capacity
  Planning, CMG85 Proceedings, 1985.
• Thompson, G.I., Six Levels of Sophistication for
  Capacity Management, CMG2000 Proceedings, 2000.