Transcript Slide 1

Using AutoSoftCapping (ASC)
to Manage Your z/OS
Software Bill
©Softwareonz 2013
©2010 SoftwareOnZ
Agenda
• General Terminology
• Quick Review of VWLC
•
•
•
•
R4H
Defined Capacity
IMSU
SubCapacity Report Tool (SCRT)
• VWLC with IBM SoftCapping
• VWLC with Auto Soft Capping
• Q&A
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General Terminology
• Technical terms and abbreviations used in
today’s presentation.
– MSU: (Million Service Units) : reference unit for Software billing.
– IMSU (or ACTMSU): instantaneous MSU consumption
– R4H: Rolling 4 Hours
– CPC Capacity: z/Server full capacity
– Soft-Capping / WLM
• WLM, PR/SM and enforcement the Soft-Capping limit
– DC: Defined Capacity
– Hardware Management Console (HMC)
– Givers/Takers/Crunchable
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The 4 Parts of
vWLC !
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The 4 Parts of VWLC
Part 1 R4H
The R4H represents the average consumption (in MSU) of the
LPAR during the last 4 hours
Part 2 DC
Artificial number for each LPAR used to control costs by capping
usage when exceeded; set on the HMC
Part 3 IMSU
The instantaneous consumption of MSU for each LPAR
Part 4 SCRT
a no-charge IBM tool that reports required license capacity for subcapacity eligible products; used to calculate your monthly MLC bill
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I’ve got vWLC !
But where are the savings ?
IBM Soft-Capping Feature
But I hear that impacts performance !
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IBM Soft-Capping Feature
• IBM Soft-Capping is a feature which allows the control of z/OS bill.
– This limit is called Defined Capacity (DC)
• The Soft-Capping rule:
• When Rolling 4 Hours (R4H) becomes greater than or equal to DC then the
LPAR is capped. That means that the IMSU consumption will not be able to
exceed DC anymore until the R4H becomes lower than the DC.
• The Enforcer
• WLM & PR/SM
• http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs --> WLM Soft Capping Support
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IBM Soft-Capping Feature
– LPAR activity: varying MSU consumption over time
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IBM Soft-Capping Feature
– LPAR activity with R4H added:
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IBM Soft-Capping feature
– Adding a DC causes the LPAR to be capped:
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An example of how you control your costs with
Soft-Capping Defined Capacity = 0
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You don’t !
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An example of how you control your costs
with Soft-Capping Defined Capacity = x
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IBM Soft-Capping Feature
– Adding a DC can cause an LPAR to be capped:
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What About GCL?
• GCL allows you to set a capacity limit on a
group of LPARs
– More flexibility and can reduce capping
• But problems can occur when you hit the
group cap
– Does the appropriate LPAR get capped?
• Can negatively impact online workloads.
– How quick before reverting back to HMC weights?
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So How Can You Take
Advantage of VWLC and Set
Defined Capacity
Without Causing a Lot of
Administrative Pain and Effort?
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The Answer is
Auto SoftCapping
(ASC)
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AutoSoftCapping - Agenda
• Just a few more new definitions
• vWLC strategy
• ASC – Prerequisites
• AutoSoftCapping
– General Principles
– zCost ASC - Key points
– ASC – Reporting tools
• Next Steps
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AutoSoftCapping - Strategy
• What is your vWLC strategy?
– Set Defined Capacity to 0 and forget it?
– Set it to Avoid Capping?
• Cap the Test, QA environments only?
– How do you modify it?
• What kind of approval is required?
– Follow what the experts say?
• Set it low and adjust as required?
• Reset at the beginning of the month?
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How ASC Works: High Level
• ASC optimizes the performance of your system while
controlling your Workload License Charge…
– ASC uses metrics collected for each LPAR at regular intervals:
• Examples include DC, IMSU, R4H, capacity, capping, etc.
• The interval can be set by the user (usually 5 minutes)
– ASC analyzes the collected metrics for each CEC and LPAR
involved:
• Can control how this is done using various parameters
• Can protect specific LPARs from participating
• Can dictate activities by timeframe
– ASC applies a sophisticated algorithm to determine for the next
time interval the partition defined capacity that best fits its
performance objective and avoids constraints.
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General Principle
• ASC Optimizes the performance of your system while
controlling your Workload License Charge.
– It does so by setting the Defined Capacity line using parameters such
as those shown here to control DC setting:
• CPC: CPCMAX, CPCMIN
• LPAR: MSUMAX, MSUMIN
• PERIOD statements
The general guiding principle of ASC:
If IMSU < R4H
Decrease DC to just above the R4H to optimize the SCRT and avoid
capping, releasing DC MSUs to the pool.
If IMSU > R4H
Increase DC to just above the R4H to avoid capping, taking from the
pool or enforce capping as you have defined
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What Does ASC Modify?
• The only setting that ASC modifies is Defined
Capacity (DC)
• What about WLM?
• ASC adjusts the DC line, WLM handles z/OS resources
• With or without ASC: the SoftCapping activation
needs attention on a well-managed WLM policy.
• ASC does not interfere with or change your WLM
policies
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ASC Prerequisites
• Configuration prerequisites :
– Being in vWLC mode
– Using IBM Soft-Capping feature.
– HMC:
• Must be accessible for the LPAR that support the ASC Started Task.
• HMC API must be configured and active (API SNMP)
• Data Gathering: one of two ways
– RMF:
– RMF III started on all LPARs.
– RMFDDS (GPMSERVE): at least one active on each SYSPLEX (Multi-system or
Monoplex)
– CMF:
– Mainview Explorer (BMC) started on each server (CPC)
• Which data will be used?
– ASC retrieves data from RMFDDS or Mainview Explorer such as:
• CPC level: serial number, family, type, number of CPs...
• LPAR level: R4H, DC, IMSU, Weight, number of Logical Processors…
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zCost – AutoSoftCapping (ASC)
• How does ASC reduce costs?
• The LPARs’ DCs (Defined Capacity) are
dynamically modified in real time by taking
into account the behavior and needs of all
the LPARs.
• Keeps the total DC (CPCMAX) constant
and guarantees software cost optimization
• Consider the following:
52-28-20
55-41-4
72-8-20
93-4-3
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zCost – AutoSoftCapping (ASC)
• AutoSoftCapping:
• Web reporting which allows for control on your activity
and your System z/resources.
• ASC adjusts the DC line, WLM handles z/OS resources
• ASC goes after your peaks
• 2 different sets of Parameters
• ASCGENxx – Manage ASC
• ASCLPAXX – Manage at the LPAR level.
• Flexibility
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Adjusting Factors – ASC Decisions
• ASC insure MSUs sharing among the different LPARs and the CPC free
space. It takes into account:
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The LPAR activity (current DC, R4H, IMSU)
LPAR’s claims and giving capabilities
The context (behavior of the LPARs in previous intervals…)
ASC parameters General - LPAR
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PRIORITY
DFCBASE
MSUMIN
MSUMAX
PROTECTED
• CPCMAX
• CPCMIN
LPAR priority level to receive MSUs
Value under which the LPAR can never be forced to go down.
LPAR DC Minimum value
LPAR DC Maximum value
In case of high risk of capping (R4H close to DC and IMSU very
higher), the LPAR get a high priority level and cannot be
forced to give MSUs
Maximum value for the SUM of the LPAR’s DCs (for all LPARs running
in the CPC)
Minimum value for the SUM of the LPAR’s DCs (for all LPARs
running in the CPC)
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ASC Setting
• ASC performs dynamic Settings:
– Sends DC modification orders to the HMC, and the DCs are set
according to the algorithm decisions.
• ASC performs period Settings:
– Period Settings allow ASC to modify some settings at predefined
date/time. It can:
• Modify the DC by setting a predefined value to the parameter DEFCAP
• Modify the weight by setting a predefined value to the parameter
WEIGHT
• ASC Reset Profile: set the DEFCAP and WEIGHT parameters of all LPARs to
the initial value (contained in DFCBASE and WBASE)
• Modify parameters by taking into account predefined parameters values
or by reloading predefined parameters members.
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ASC – Product Flow
ZCASC Main ASC Started Task
Data Collection RMF or CMF
- LPARs (DC, IMSU, R4H, WLM Capping, …)
- CPCs (capacity, CPs, ..)
ASC Parameters
ooCOD LPAxx member
Period Definitions
Market Open and Close
LPAR’s behavior analysis
Make decisions to modify DCs
ASC Commands
Grab ooCOD increase
Rexx script ASC cmd f,
LPAR settings (via HMC API)
ZCASCW ASC Web SERVER
Web reporting (update HTML files)
Sending alarms (WTO, emails)
Writing SMF records
Operator
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ASC – Web Interface
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Web Interface – Zooming In
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Recall Our Earlier Pros & Cons Chart
vWLC with IBM Soft-Capping: Pros & Cons
Allows billing control
Low DCs
Potential performance
problems (capping)
IBM Soft-Capping
No capping
High DCs
The bill is not
controlled anymore
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vWLC with AutoSoftCapping: Pros & Cons
Allows billing control
Low DCs
Allows billing control
Allows billing control
AutoSoftCapping
Allows billing control
High DCs
Allows billing control
Allows billing control
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Putting ASC into Action
• You provide us with:
–
–
–
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Mutual NDA
On-site technical discussion of AutoSoftCapping
SMF records 70 over a significant period
The SCRT of the last month for each CPC
• We process the data through our simulator.
• We schedule a meeting to present:
– Review the results of the simulations
– Review the Financials, Costs and ROI
– Schedule a POC
– Run in Simulation mode and validate results
– Turn it on
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zCost ASC – In Summary….
•
ASC SAVES MONEY by controlling the z/OS license charge.
– Very short ROI: All our current customers got an ROI between 3 and 12 months!
– An average of saved MSU between 7 and 15%.
• ASC opens new opportunities in how you run your operations
•
ASC is a simple tool:
– Easy to set up on the machine.
– Compatible with all existing System z servers.
– A sophisticated Web Reporting interface allows more control of the system.
•
ASC receives excellent customer feedback.
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Contact Info
•
SoftwareOnZ
• http://www.softwareonz.com
•
Technical Support
• Craig S. Mullins
• [email protected]
•
Your US sales contact
• Brian Hoare
• [email protected]
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Q&A
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