A slide deck highlighting the major features and gaps between the two tools:
April 2020 Sprints
April 27
Hi everyone
Hope all is well at end of quarter. We did release a new sprint with some nice enhancements-
- Mine can now have Objects as it archive. So you can put a lot of the archive data on cheaper storage. Screenshot below. You can adjust the mix of how much to put on Mine vs Objects
- AMD sizing is ready … well whenever we have AMD models. Ratan worked through lot of narly stuff to get this ready and wanted to plug his efforts and good that Sizer is ready
- NX – 12 cores rule for 12TB HDDs are there
- DX – added the gpu cables and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM to the BOM). We are pretty complete on offering full BOM for DX now
- VERY COOL department…
- Go to a workload and scroll down and you will see on your left a menu with the sections that scroll with you (attached). Sizer in last couple years has way more stuff in a workload and so resulted in lot of scrolling, but now we made it easy to go all round
- Manual sizing UI is nicer now too
April 13
- New edit/add workload page – We want to introduce new functionality as we develop Sizer Basic and Advanced. We are now offering our new workload page. It is easier to select what you want. Hope you like it and describe it below·
- N+1 yellow indicator. When we do an auto sizing or you do a manual sizing we let you know if the resiliency is N+0, N+1., or N+2. Most people shoot for N+1. What we do is under the covers is remove a node and go through all the sizing rules and equations and make sure indeed it is less than the N+0 threshold (for example for CPU that is 95%). That is all good but you can be close and so we wanted to let you know. Using the CPU example if within 5% of the n+0 threshold we keep it N+1 as technically it is but turn it yellow. Given sizing is lot of estimates it is best to have some margin for error and let you all know your close to the edge.·
- Migration for VDI Display protocol – Display Protocol was added recently as an input for VDI sizing. The VDI gurus felt it was needed going forward. It is very expensive though adding 40 to 45% on cores. While this is valid sizing this could break any old sizings. So in older sizings it will default to None·
- Mine licenses updated
April 6
GREAT NEWS
We have Frame for AHV live in Sizer
As mentioned in the town hall, EUC and in particular Frame for AHV is a hot market in extremely difficult times. We were working on it but pulled it in. We always want Sizer to enable you guys to do the amazing work you do. In these times though, we will acutely focus on solutions that are really hot right now. I see improving upsell (replace or increase nodes in existing clusters) as next focus.
Very simple to use if you are familiar with VDI in Sizer (which is one of top workloads and so presumably you are). Frame for AHV is simply a different broker and the display protocol is selected. All the other options are the same.Beyond enabling it in the tool, we will soon add licenses to make that easier to quote (we have AOS and the HW now). We will also enhance collateral with the solution as time goes on.Hope you like … let us know. Attached is short video
March 2020 Sprints
March 31
Hi gang
We are actively building out Sizer Basic and Sizer Advanced. Sizer Basic for customers, reps, other non-technical folks who want a sizing and just go with the default profiles. Sizer Advanced will offer the SE much more advanced functionality for multiple workloads, multiple clusters, etc
As we build those out we want to get some of the functionality out in Sizer when available. Today we introduced Workload Filters. We see a workload where with Collector you may have a hundred workloads and finding what you want will be hard. Enter the filter where you can filter by workload name, workload type, number of VMs. cores, RAM, SSD (either less than or greater than a value ), status (enabled/disabled).
Examples
- Show me just workloads of certain type (e.g. VDI)
- Show me workloads that have min or max of so many cores (could be RAM, HDD,SSD)
- show me just enabled workloads
- show me ones with certain name string or partial string
- Combine all the above
This will ultimately be accompanied with BULK EDITs. So find me all the VDI workloads with certain name string and change profile to Power User for example. Here is screen shot (edited)
March 16
We did come out with new Sprint last night
Backup is now a regular primary workload like VDI, Server Virt, etc (see below). It had been a target for existing workloads but now Backup can be a primary workload where you figure out the backup requirements if the customer is just wanting back up some data from some other systems beside Nutanix
12TB HDD/min12 cores
Partial population rule for Nutanix with 1.92TB SSD
NX: 128GB with mCPU, LCPU
various updates for Dell XC
March 2
Great to see so many of you at GTS America
We did go live with the new sprint.
Now have full BOM for HP DX. Why that is important is as you go to the HP store to place a quote you will have full information you need including the power supply for example. At GTS, people asked about us making a call to the HP store. Unfortunately they don’t have a API we can call. We will work on making it easier though with a link from Sizer We did do The cascade refresh CPUs but not live in Sizer yet. I would expect those in next 2 days
February 2020 Sprints
Feb 24
Hi everyone
I am at GTS Americas. Hope to see lot of you. I have a presentation tomorrow with the Partners and one on Thursday with NX field.
- A lot of very cool things are happening in the Sizer area which I’ll discuss in these presentations but here is the summary.
- Collector 2.2 is out but coming is Collector Portal which allows customer to share their collection much easier than with Excel
- Sizer Basic is in the works and should be out this qtr. This is streamlined for volume sales and will be available to customers. We have had a customer program for some time which has been a success and this will be cool. Think about collaborating with the customer on sizing. I’ll talk more
- Sizer will get a lot more advanced. We are moving to multiple clusters and ability to have different sizing for each cluster and for each cluster to adhere to different policy. Auto will provide 3 options – low cost, high performance, and high cap . Wow lot of options to play with
- Ok if that was not enough we are working on Sizer Xpert. Sizer today is deterministic. You want replication, RF3, Era, yada yada, by golly Sizer can do it to the 4th decimal place. Well great if you know that is what you need. Working on Xpert that will review your solutions and prescribe ideas. We worked on it at hackathon and now in development. hope to see a lot of you this week and please do reach out if want to meet 1 on 1. Ratan Kumar will be in EMEA GTS later next month. We will cover APAC one too
Server Virtualization
What is a Server Virtualization sizing?
This is the most common workload along with VDI. This can be used for any web app which needs to be sized. Each workload or the application which is to be migrated to the Nutanix software stack is a VM with its own CPU/RAM/Capacity requirements. To simplify for the users, Sizer has set profiles (small,medium,large ) for the VMs but customizable as per the actual application needs.
What are profiles in Server Virtualization in Sizer?
Profiles are fixed templates with pre assigned resources in terms of vCPUs, RAM, SSD, HDD to each profile. Broadly, small, medium,large profiles will have different allocation of these resources.
The idea is to facilitate users with the details of a workload (that is a VM) so they cna quickly fill in number of VMs and Sizer will do the necessary sizing.
Small VM profile template:
Medium VM profile template:
Large VM profile template:
What if my VMs are different? Have differen values?
While these templates and their values are general guidelines, these are customisable.
Clicking on the Customize, opens a pop-up for user entered values:
January 2020 Sprints
January 21
Collector
- Collector or RVTools – Can now size for just powered ON VMs or both Powered ON and OFF VMs. Was just Powered ON.
- Collector or RVTools profile can go up to 64GB RAM (was 32GB)
Usability
- Rich Text Format is now available for Scenario Objectives. So you can bold things or underline words in the Objectives to make a key point. This also makes it into the BOM and so a nicer document
January 31
Products
- Complete HPE DX BOM. Now Sizer will provide a complete BOM including chasis, power supplies, etc. This makes it easier and reduces potential errors when quoting HPE DX models on HP’s configurator.
- Update to 8155-G7 product rules
Workloads
- Allow for 240TB per node for Objects Dedicated workloads. Since it is Objects Dedicated workloads other applications are not allowed
December 2019 Sprints
Dec 20
Hello everyone We went live with our latest sprint today with following key items:
- Add some workload VMs to Object Dedicated clusters for free (1 VM per node)
- Storage Capacity Calculator – Added support for NVMe only models and SSD/NVMe models
- New Intel models – S2600WF0-2U1N-12 and S2600BPS-2U4N-12
Dec 9
Hi everyone. We launched our latest sprint.
- Glad to offer Mine as backup target now
- Sizing Improvements and Processor input/Workload
- Added Cascade Lake processors to the pull down list when you start a new workload
Usability
- Allow editing of cluster in a workload – Now you can move workloads around to different clusters without cloning a new workload and deleting old one.
General
- Add N+0/ N+1 pulldown to Extent Store Charts – UI. Now Extent Store charts and Extent Store values in the Sizing details are in sync.
- Add scenario delete operation on dashboard (list and tile view) – Can get rid of old scenarios easier than opening each and deleting them.
Product Alignment
- XC 740xd-24update/1.6TB SSD
- Add 8260M and 8280M processors for Nutanix
- DX is available to Nutanix partners
- Added more profiles for the V100 GPU with 32GB RAM
Workloads
- Now Mine is available. In any workload you were able to direct backup to a different cluster and now Mine can be the target. Sizer will do the sizing and include all the skus including the Nutanix skus for Veeam or HYCU software. Unfortunately, you have to create a new opportunity in Sales Force and quote the Mine products separately from the main cluster with CBL.
November 2019 Sprints
Nov 25
Latest sprint went live last night, with the following changes:
- Retain fields in manual mode: In manual mode, while changing the model, quantity is retained, previously it used to get reset.. similarly, all the other fields
- CPU/Memory/SSD/HDD/NIC/GPU is retained upon changing the model type or even model if it has the same components..
- Validator updated with latest product changes/rules for 3rd party platforms..
- Platforms: Dell XC : XR2(XC Core only platform), HPE DX 560 Gen10 24SFF available for sizing..
- NX 8170-G7 ready from Sizer end..
Nov 11
Latest sprint went live last night and includes:
- Deep Nodes for NearSync – We already made changes to extend support for hourly snapshots (1 hour RPO) for nodes with up to 64TB HDD ( for hybrid nodes) and up to 80TB SSD (all flash nodes). This was for async. We now did that for NearSync as well.
- Correct RVTools capacity – Collector 2.1 stores VM capacity data in GiB/MiB (and not GB/MB) both for VMware and Nutanix clusters as stored that way in Prism and VCenter. RVTool unfortunately states states the capacity in GB/MB even though the data VCenter is in GiB/MiB. We now treat the capacities as GIB/MiB which is correctWorking on SAP Hana, Mine, 8170-G7 … all coming soon
Upgrade scenario
What is Upgrade sales option in Sizer?
So far Sizer has been focussing on getting a new cluster sized for deploying a new workload or migrating an existing workload from a 3 tier architecture to Nutanix private cloud. However, it did not address the upgrade or expansion use case scenario for an existing Nutanix cluster.
With this option available in Sizer, SEs can recreate an existing Nutanix cluster.
How does Upgrade sales option work in Sizer?
Pretty much similar to how it works for standard scenario/use case. The SE selects the scenario as Upgrade sale by clicking the checkbox below in the scenario page:
Sizer acknowledges that it is a Upgrade use case and will show options accordingly. For workloads, it is not different – meaning, SEs can still go ahead and add details about the workload running on the existing Nutanix cluster, however, they need to know the details of the workload in order to recreate the cluster.
Additionally, they can run Collector to kow all about the workload and import Collector output to recreate the existing cluster.
So how is it different from standard scenario in Sizer?
The key difference in Upgrade vs standard scenario is the availability of the HW. The upgrade scenario will list all older models as well, for ex: for NX, will list G5 & G4 platforms.
While the auto sizing recommends the current HW platforms [like G7 for NX], in both cases, the manual option will have older G4/G5 NX platforms for SEs to recreate the existing cluster with the original NX model which can be (and most likely) be the older platforms which is currently end of sale.
Please see the image below for reference:
What other ways is this feature helpful apart from upgrade ?
This feature is also helpful for expansion purpose. Users can recreate the existing cluster with G4/G5 models and add another node for expansion, that node could be G7. And this cluster with mixed nodes of existing G4s and new G7s can be created in Sizer with this option.
Creating a Frontline Quote (including budgetary quote) for Upgrade scenarios in Sizer?
Sizer also allows you to generate a Frontline quote or Budgetary quote for an upgrade scenario. Since Upgrade Scenario deals with an existing Nutanix cluster deployed at the customer site, users have an option to mark the already existing nodes that are already part of the solution as “Existing”. Sizer won’t be generating the hardware quote and the licenses for those existing nodes as they are already purchased by the customer. If the existing license is a Life of Device license and if the customer plans to move to a CBL license model, an additional software license needs to be added manually.
The BOM generated by Sizer would contain the overall solution with both the existing and new nodes and the license quantities required for the overall solution.
ECX savings
What is ECX [Erasure Coding] in Nutanix ?
The Nutanix platform leverages a replication factor (RF) for data protection and availability. This method provides the highest degree of availability because it does not require reading from more than one storage location or data re-computation on failure. However, this does come at the cost of storage resources as full copies are required.
To provide a balance between availability while reducing the amount of storage required, DSF provides the ability to encode data using erasure codes (EC). Similar to the concept of RAID (levels 4, 5, 6, etc.) where parity is calculated, EC encodes a strip of data blocks on different nodes and calculates parity. In the event of a host and/or disk failure, the parity can be leveraged to calculate any missing data blocks (decoding).
The number of data and parity blocks in a strip is configurable based upon the desired failures to tolerate. The configuration is commonly referred to as the number of <data blocks>/<number of parity blocks>.
How is ECX savings calculated in Sizer ?
Sizer follows the Nutanix Bible and its guidelines for ECX savings.
Below table shows the ECX overhead vs RF2/RF3 for different nodes:
The expected overhead can be calculated as <# parity blocks> / <# data blocks>. For example, a 4/1 strip has a 25% overhead or 1.25X compared to the 2X of RF2. A 4/2 strip has a 50% overhead or 1.5X compared to the 3X of RF3.
How does Sizer calculate ECX savings from the above:
Lets take an example where the cold data for workload is 100TiB.
Also, we will use RF2 as the settings chosen for workload.
So depending on the size of the workload, if the total node recommended came to (lets say 4 nodes), as per the above table: data/parity is 2/1. So 1.5x overhead for ECX as against 2 for RF2 , thus 50% savings.
For conservative approach and to be on safe side, we only consider ECX for 90 % of the cold data.
ECX applied on 90% of 100TiB = 90TiB
How much ECX savings: 50% = 50% of 90TiB = 45TiB