We went live with the current sprint and excited to highlight a few major features.. one of which has been frequently requested by the SE community ..

Intel / AMD (View Other Alternatives) :

• You would notice the ‘view other alternatives’ appear just below the default solution (pic below)
• The solution includes the AMD models option for the same workload along with the Intel(default) models (along with the cost delta)
• As per NX team, with the introduction of NX AMD models, there may be situation where the AMD option may come out to be optimal thus having both presented gives a broader perspective and may help drive its adoption.
• The alternative option is not restricted to NX but is applied across vendors(which support AMD models).

Collaboration / Sharing with edit access:

• One of the frequently requested features. Earlier sharing was read only, and users had to clone (under their name) to make edits.
• While sharing, you can now choose to share as ‘read only’ or ‘write’. The latter allowing the shared user to make edits to the same scenario.
• Only one user can make edits at a time and the scenario is locked by/for the user. It can be seen as ‘Active Editor’ on the top , next to scenario owner (pic below)
• Once the active editor finishes making changes and scenario is in idle state, it releases the scenario for editing by others.
• Alternatively, the active user can also release it immediately by clicking on ‘Stop editing’ button.
• As the first phase, this is enabled only for internal users via SFDC login, opening to IDP/Partner login is in plan.
• There is a short demo on this for an end-to-end flow: https://nutanix.zoom.us/rec/share/rWpWSXcUyUF5fx3gc8d91nVJs5_3xgyXiN3lvDl2WMls0sTE_qk6J4rVKlrBDdoj.D1DqFh_nlbg7UgIc?startTime=1705414710000

Platforms :

• Cisco Edge Offer SKUs available for sizing/BOM
• Adding platform integration fee as a line item in the Budgetary quote (in sync with FL)

Survey: Conducted a survey on feature gaps/UX review.

https://forms.gle/CrqKz5JnEFziAPSw6

With the current release, Sizer introduces two new capabilities .. Compute-only/Storage-only nodes and linking Frontline quotes:

• Compute-only/Storage-only nodes:
  Cluster settings has Node type to select only HCI solution(or with CO or SO options)
  Supports the DBOptimized nodes (CO+SO) as part of AOS 6.6.2
  In UI, the nodes will be tagged as CO or SO to identify the node types
  In manual mode, you can treat a node as CO or SO by tagging
  As you know, this should help creating a solution especially on databases optimizing on 3rd party licenses

Linking quotes
All Frontline quotes generated for that scenario can be referenced via ‘Related quotes’ pop-up
Includes quoteId link along with the status and date created/modified
This will be helpful in tracking the scenarios to quotes for past or future reference
We will be soon coming up with a concept of primary sizing(locking it           once quote is created) and allow edit only on clone. This would help avoid 1 to many mappings and better tracking.

Other enhancements:
Discounts pre-filled in budgetary quote is more aligned with good/target              discounts from Frontline
Expert cluster templates – models changed to NG8
NC2 clusters max limits-13 for NC2/Azure and 28 for NC2/AWS
vCPU:pcore for imported workloads – using exact ratio (no rounding off)

Have a great week!

What is a HW Template in Sizer ? 

HW (Hardware) templates are pre-defined node configurations that can be created and saved by user. These will appear in their list of saved HW templates and can be used/applied while current or future sizings.

Similar to Cluster templates, HW template is a user-defined settings, only difference being HW templates allows to create exact specific HW config whereas Cluster templates provides attributes or settings guiding the sizer to pick up best configuration.

How can one create a HW Template?

There are two ways to define your fixed configuration of node via HW templates:

One – Upon landing to sizer (my scenario) dashboard, users can click on “Templates” and select HW Templates which opens up the HW configuration page ( similar to Manual mode page) where they can choose the vendor / platform and everything else (CPU/MeM/SSD/HDD/NICs/GPU)

Second – In order to save the effort, users can also create the HW templates while in the midst of a current sizing. While in a sizing exercise, in manual mode, when users would be defining a configuration , they can also quickly save it as a HW template in one additional step by giving it a name (either for a workload or by customer for example: HW Template-Databases, or HW Template-BestBuy)

How to use the HW templates ?

The objective for HW template is that you create once and use every time for that particular situation ( by workload or for a particular customer or any other scenario).

After creating the workload, when users are presented the Cluster settings/Sizing options screen, it shows them the option of HW Templates which can be applied for that sizing. This is in along with the other Cluster / SW settings they would like to use for that scenario. Sizer , then, iterates through the different solutions meeting the workload criteria and the cluster settings but restricting itself to only the HW Template(s) that the user selected for that sizing. Sizer would then recommend the right number of nodes (of the selected HW template(s)) meeting all the workload and cluster settings criteria.

How is HW Templates useful ? 

The biggest advantage for HW Templates is that it optimizes the sizing activity for situations where their is a fixed BOM involved. That could be whether based on a customers existing server farm or a Service Provider or a reseller/distributor with a fixed BOM(like Arrow with custom built HPE configs) or simply SE preferred config for a given workload.

Another use case can be for upgrades. SEs can define the NG8 equivalent of their older HW upgrades(like NX G5) and always map the existing cluster on older models to a mapped one via Templates.

Once the config is fixed, Sizer then comes up with number of nodes avoiding any back and forth for number of nodes of that BOM to meet the criteria.

Also, for future sizings for the similar criteria, users need not do all the manual exercise all over again (and even run the risk of manual errors) but simply import the HW Template for that criteria and get uniform/consistent sizing in one single click.

While creating the fixed BOM configuration, HW Templates also ensures all the platform rules are adhered to.   Additionally, after importing the templates, users can edit/modify configs and tweak it from the original template and before going ahead with the sizing, can save the edited template with a different name.

Here is a short demo on HW Templates, how to create and use : 

• Now upgrade flow also supports HPE DX
• You can recreate existing cluster with older DX configs (just as NX)
• This will be a manual exercise though (like NX) but auto recreate will be coming soon

• Option to consider the storage for powered Off VMs (even if sized for only powered ON VMs)
• This is applicable across Collector/RVTool/Insights imports
• Checked by default but can opt-out

• This will retain the source cluster and the VMs mapped to accordingly to the sizing
• Instead of consolidating all VMs to default Cluster-1
• Not checked by default so need to opt-in

• Snapshots: RPO frequency updates for AOS 6.5.1

• One-hour supported for up to 136TB for hybrid nodes  plus other rule changes
• Adding 2% buffer for max capacity restrictions

• 15.36TB NVMe SSDs support / Storage Capacity calculator
• Lenovo Rule: Limit CPUs with wattage <=205W

• NCI : Handling the free TiBs of Files / Objects with the NCI license (also for Legacy)
• EUC : Handling free GBs per user for Files with per user VDI license

• My scenarios dashboard:  Dynamically adjustable columns

• Makes search by name easier
• Including shared scenario dashboard

• Partner login:

• Updating deal registration-based validation for partner flow
• Allow sizing for all approved deal registration ids

• NCP bundle:

• Highlighting individual licenses across tiers

• A new section on TCO in the Proposal deck
• It has charts comparing the total cost of the solution on NX vs AWS
• It is based on pre-build scenarios of standard sizes that is closest to the one being sized
• For example: for a sizing of 450 VDI users, it will pick a pre-build scenario of 500 VDI users
• It’s an optional and editable section in the proposal ,and hope it serves as a good conversation starter
• The section also has guide on where and how to reach out to TCO team for a more detailed analysis/questions

• To address wide range of requests and different use cases, introduced two modes for allocating CVM cores
• Regular mode: It is the current behaviour (and default option) so no changes
• Performance mode: If selected, it doubles up the cvm cores
• For example: for a regular VDI sizing, sizer allocates 4 cores , but if performance mode, will allocate 8 cores
• Particularly helpful in addressing the resources required for certain configs, for example: NVMe nodes

• NVMe nodes are used even for non-performance critical use case due to price parity with SSDs so regular allocation should be fine

• In cases where it is used for performance , selecting the mode will ensure higher cores are provisioned

• Updated HPE DX HW pricing for budgetary quotes (for DX BOM)
• Lenovo product updates

• Proposals – includes NG8 and HPE DXG10Plus models
• HPE DX HW BOM – pricing update for budgetary quote
• NCM Cloud add-on in Solutions
• NUS add-on to NCI update (can add to all tiers)
• NC2(AWS) – heterogeneous cluster support (mixing of different server types)
•  NVME nodes CVM update (parity with SSD node type) – regular use case

• NX NG8 NIC changes : support for configurable LOM(AIOM)
• Fujitsu – additional memory configs support