Instance-level consolidation is organized into solutions and projects. A single solution may contain one or more projects. A solution determines the source data (i.e. the time series of your instances), whereas a project contains a set of target servers.
Creating a planning solution
- Select Plan > Instance consolidation from the navigation menu.
- Select Create new solution from the drop-down menu and give the solution a name.
- Drag servers from the tree into the large box.
- Select a filter type from the drop-down. If you select "Include instances marked for migration", only the instances you have checked for migration in Settings > Metadata > Instances will be included in the project. Otherwise, all instances will be included.
- Select a planning scope from the drop-down list. This is how far into the future you want your target architecture to last.
- Enter a statistics start date and end date. These values determine the source instance time series.
- Click on Save to save the solution and generate the time series.
When your solution is saved, you can create one or more projects under it.
Creating a planning project
- With a planning solution selected, select Create new project from the drop-down menu and give the project a name.
- Select a virtual machine fit mode from the drop-down. The possible values are:
- Compact - Maximum savings; good for stand-alone instances
- Availability - Maximum availability; good for failovers and availability groups
- Select a hardware vendor and a type from the drop-downs.
- Depending on your selections, the box below will show a list of servers that match your selections. For cloud providers, the list is a default list generated automatically, but for other vendors you must first create physical and (optional) virtual servers in Settings > Metadata. For more information, see, How to create a physical target server and How to create a virtual target server.
- Add target server templates to the project by selecting a server and clicking on the arrow button. Once added to the project, right-click on a server and configure it with the settings you want.
- Set criticality
- This setting defines the maximum fill levels and SLAs. The values for each criticality level can be changed by going to Settings > Metadata > Criticality.
- Set server type
- Standalone
- Active-passive
- Active-active
- Set planning group. These are determined in Settings > Metadata > Planning groups and affect only the visualization of the results.
- Set criticality
- Click on Save.
When your project is created, you can start creating mappings by selecting Plan > Instance mapping from the navigation menu.