Templates

Templates are used for adding new workloads or hosts in the editor. They also allow for creating a business demand template or modelling a disaster recovery situation.

Using a template ensures that you have a consistent host definition and workload profile while you plan different Baseline View instances as part of the Forward Thinking process.

Details of templates can be seen in the Templates section of the configuration panel on the right of the sunburst.

Host template Copied

Host templates are used in Baseline View or Forward Thinking for modelling the addition of existing hardware, or completely new hardware. Host templates can be used if you want to simulate adding new hardware or replacing existing hardware. Inputting the specifications of your new machines into the template allows you to model moving your workloads to the new hosts.

The available host templates are listed in the Templates panel on the right of the sunburst. New host templates are created from existing hosts, or from additional data uploaded using an input file.

Create host template from an existing host Copied

To create a new host template from an existing host, follow these steps:

1. In the Baseline View or Forward Thinking scenario, right-click the host segment from which you wish to create a host template.
2. From the list, select New template.
3. Enter the name for your template. By default, the name of the host is used as template name.
4. Click Create template.

The new host template is added to the Templates panel. To view the details of a Host Template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.

Create host template from uploaded data Copied

To create a new host template or templates from uploaded data, follow these steps:

1. In the configuration panel list on the right, click Templates.
   The Templates panel opens with the list of available workload and host templates.
2. Click the Host tab.
   A list of available templates opens.
3. Click Download empty template and choose a location for the file. The template is a CSV file which may be edited using any compatible tool.
4. Open and populate the file with data for the new templates.
5. Click Upload host templates and select the populated CSV file to upload the new host templates.

The new host templates are added to the Templates panel. To view the details of a host template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.

Note that once you upload a template, you cannot edit its details. To change the details of a template, you need to delete it and upload it again.

The following is an example of a host template showing various configurations for AWS instance types:

Workload template Copied

Workload templates are used in Baseline View or Forward Thinking for modelling the addition of new workloads. Example use cases for creating workload templates are:

• You buy a new machine and wish to add new VMs to it as well.
• You have a typical workload that can be used to generally represent a web server.
• You have a VDI server instance with a typical demand profile and you wish to understand your headroom for more servers of this type.

The available workload templates are listed in the Templates panel. New workload templates are created from existing workloads, or from additional data uploaded using an input file.

Note

If you upload a new template, it will have zero utilisation for all metrics. To create workloads with initial resource utilisation, duplicate an existing template instead. When you duplicate an existing template, you must give initial values for resource utilisation across CPU, memory, and storage.

Create a workload template from an existing workload Copied

To create a new workload template from an existing workload, follow these steps:

1. In the configuration panel list on the right, right-click the workload from which you wish to create a workload template.
2. From the list, select New template.
3. Enter the name for your template. By default, the name of the workload is used as template name.
4. Select the Include demand check box if you want to include the demand in the new template.
   • If demand is included, the template also includes the copied values for all metrics.
   • If demand is not included, only the configuration and capacity are used.
5. Click Create template.

The new workload template is added to the Templates panel. To view details of a workload template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.

Auto-calculate an average workload Copied

You can auto-calculate an average workload from any point in the hierarchy. A good example of entity from which to do this is a virtual cluster. Follow these steps:

1. Find an entity you want to use to calculate an average workload from in the sunburst or use the search feature in the application menu bar.
2. Right-click the segment and then select Workloads > Calculate average.
3. Enter the name for your template. By default, the name of the workload is used as template name.
4. Optionally, you can set this template as the reference used for headroom calculations. If you do not want to do now, you can do it later using the Workloads panel.
5. Click Create template.

The new workload template is added to the Templates panel. To view details of a workload template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.

Create a workload template from uploaded data Copied

To create a new host template from uploaded data, follow the steps:

1. In the configuration panel list on the right, click Templates.
   The Templates panel opens with the list of available workload and host templates.
2. Click the Workload tab.
   A list of available templates opens.
3. Click Download empty template and choose a location for the file.
   The template is a CSV file which may be edited using any compatible tool.
4. Open and populate the file with data for the new templates.
5. Click Upload workload templates and select the populated CSV file to upload the new host templates.

The new workload templates are added to the Templates panel. To view the details of a workload template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.

Note that once you upload a template, you cannot edit its details. To change the details of a template, you need to delete it and upload it again.

The following is an example of a workload template for various VM configurations:

Set reference workload Copied

Workload templates are used to set the default headroom reference.

To change the reference workload, follow these steps:

1. In the configuration panel list on the right, click Templates.
   The Templates panel opens with the list of available workload and host templates
2. Click the Workload tab.
   A list of available templates opens. The workload currently set as reference is marked with a bookmark icon .
3. Click options for the workload you would like to use as a new reference and select the Set as headroom reference option from the list.

The workload is now the new reference workload. For more information, see Reference workload.

Demand template Copied

The demand template shows the business demand, such as how many transactions or requests a system has to deal with.

The demand templates tell you what the changes in the demand will do to your resource usage for such entities as CPU, servers, etc. For example, if you increase a number of requests on a web server, the CPU usage will go up. In other words, the demand template can tell you how one metric will respond to a change of another metric.

For example, if you increase transactions for all your web servers by 1000, then that has impact on CPU by increasing it by 50. This is a function that the demand template translates into a rule. The same is done for memory and other metrics. What you get in the end are a few different rules that tell you by how much you need to increase or decrease your resources.

Demand modelling deals with the relationship between the business demand and different resources on different servers and takes place outside of Capacity Planner. When an XML file with your demand template is uploaded to Capacity Planner it changes the demand in your whole model.

Note

Demand templates are only available in Forward Thinking.

Create a demand template Copied

To create a new demand template, follow these steps:

1. In Forward Thinking, click Templates from the configuration panel list on the right.
   The Templates panel opens with the list of available templates.
2. Click the Demand tab.
   A list of available templates opens.
3. Click View example template to see the format of the template.
   The template is an XML file which may be edited using any compatible tool.
4. Open and populate the file with data for the new template.
5. Click Upload demand template and select the populated XML file to upload the new demand template.

The new demand template is added to the Templates panel. To view the details of a demand template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.

Failover template Copied

Failover templates are used to simulate a scenario where you can model a disaster recovery situation. The template calculates a total demand of the failed source and equally distributes to the failover destination. As VMs can have a different function, configuration or application, the failover operation only moves demand from each source VM to a compatible VM in the destination. A match filter determines this compatibility.

Failover templates are only available in Forward Thinking.

Create a failover template Copied

To create a new failover template, follow these steps:

1. In Forward Thinking, click Templates from the configuration panel list on the right.
   The Templates panel opens with the list of available templates.
2. Click the Failover tab.
   A list of available templates opens.
3. Click View example template to see the format of the template.
   The template is an XML file which may be edited using any compatible tool.
4. Open and populate the file with data for the new template.
5. Click Upload demand template and select the populated XML file to upload the new failover template.

The new failover template is added to the Templates panel. To view the details of a failover template click Options next to the chosen template and select the appropriate option.