Cloud Services Demand Flexibility from Capacity Planning Tools

I think the ability to extend the functionality of available tools to meet emerging demands is of key importance when doing Capacity Planning for a Cloud implementation.  

Capacity Planning is always a complex task.  Complexity is especially pronounced in a Cloud environment where system and workloads are mobile and dynamically scaled.  Capacity Planning in a Cloud environment requires robust tools which can be adapted to immediate and emerging needs.  Such tools must have the scope to address all the various components to be accounted for and the flexibility to acquire, analyze, and report from the data available for those components. 

The variety of systems, software, and related components that are present and potential in the Cloud mandates a great range of functionality from tools that can only be satisfied if the functionality of the tools can be modified and extended to accommodate combinations of data and data sources as they emerge.  Data acquisition and marshaling capabilities must be comprehensive and consistent to enable the expected quality of analysis and reporting.  Results and report distribution schemes must satisfy current and future requirements as well.

Generally, any given software tool for capacity management will not be able to meet all your needs.  This means that ideally any tool will enable you to extend the scope of featured data processing functionality with the availability of both pre and post data processing capabilities. For example, data may be available from data collectors which provide useable metrics but which are not directly supported by the product.  In this circumstance it is nice if you can create a script or program (user’s choice of language) which reformats the available data to match a supported data source, or even create a custom record format and database to suit your needs.  In either case, data of interest can then be successfully loaded into your capacity management solution for analysis and reporting, assuming you have a solution that is sufficiently flexible.  Similarly, featured reporting capabilities may be extended with post processing capabilities developed by or on behalf of the user.  Any good product will allow and support this.  IT is a sign of strength not weakness if a package offers pre and post processing extension capability as part of the monitoring and the reporting processes. 

In addition to data collection and reporting, the ability to extend processing beyond the released feature set provides users with convenient access points to interact with external systems and processes and extend both the functionality and scope of the tools.  For example, a threshold monitor may flag resource utilization and then, via a processing extension, an event notification may be passed to a work scheduling system for scheduling or an operations console for prompt remediation.  In complementary fashion, it’s good if your capacity solution can acquire dynamic information such as alerts and updates provided by external systems and incorporate that information into ongoing processing and reporting. 

I’ve been heavily involved in extending Metron’s Athene software in these ways to provide highly tailored solutions to meet specific client needs.  I’d be interested to know of any thoughts you have on challenges in this area, whatever the capacity solution you are using.

GE Guentzel

Pre Sales Consultant