Cores (Actual Cores, Adjusted Weight, Memory Adjustments like Unbalanced DIMMs)

In Sizing Details you may see an odd number like 40.27 cores for RAW cores as shown below

Actual Core Capacity

This is the total number of cores in the recommendation.

By clicking on the tooltip by the node you get the information

So in this recommendation we have 3 nodes where each has 2 cpu and each cpu has 8 cores.  So the Actual core capacity is 3 nodes * 2 cpu/node * 8 cores/cpu = 48 cores

Applied Weight

 

Intel designs a wide range of cpus to meet different market needs.  Core count certainly varies but the speed of a core is not the same across all cpu’s.

We need some benchmark to adjust for the core speed differences.  We use SPECInt 2006.  It is the best benchmark in terms of being an industry standard where vendors who publish numbers have to use standard testing process and publically publish the numbers.  We see consistency as well for a given CPU across all the vendors.  Thus this is a good benchmark to use for us to adjust for different values

So applied weight is where we have adjusted the cores to the baseline processor which runs at 42.31 specints

Review the Processor Table page with their core count, specints, and adjusted cores

Using this example we have a recommendation of 3 nodes with each node have quantity 2 2620v4 processors.  The table (calculation is shown in that page too) shows the 2620 v4 adjusted cores is 14.9 cores with nodes having 2 cpus

Thus in this recommendation total effective cores is 14.91 cores/node * 3 nodes = 44.73 cores.  We take applied weight adjustment of -3.26

 

Memory Adjustments

Broadwell Processors

With Broadwell processors “unbalanced DIMM” configuration depends on how they are laid out on the motherboard.  When it occurs there is a 10% increased access latency

To determine whether Sizer takes a discount it takes total count of DIMMs in a node and divides by 4. If odd number then it is Unbalanced and Sizer applies the discount.
If even, then no reduction is needed

Example

12x32GB in a node. 12 DIMMs/4 = 3 and so unbalanced
8X32GB in a node 8 DIMMs/4 = 2 and so balanced

If unbalanced core capacity is  reduced.

– Actual Core Capacity = Cores/Node * Node count
– Applied Wieght = extra or less cores vs baseline
– Adjustment due to Memory Issues = -10% * (RAW Cores+Applied Wieght)

It should be noted that if single processor system then NO adjustment is needed.

Skylake Processors

Skylake processors is more complex compared to Broadwell in terms of whether a system  has unbalanced dimms

We now test for the following

  • CPU – skylake
  • Model – Balanced_Motherboard – true  (described below)
  • Memory bandwidth – go with slower figure for either memory or CPU.  If 2133 Mhz then -10% memory adjustment.   If 2400Mhz or 2666Mhz (most common with skylake models) we take a 0% adjustment

Like before, we find the DIMM count per socket.  There is typically 2 sockets (cpu’s) but can be 1 and starting to introduce 4 socket models

Using the quantity of DIMMs per socket we should apply following rules

If CPU is skylake

  • If dimm count per socket is 5,7,9,10,11 then the model is considered unbalanced and we need to take a -50% memory adjustment
  • if dimm count per socket is 2,3,4, or 12 it is balanced and memory adjustment = 0%
  • if model is balanced and DIMM count per socket is 6 or 8 then it is balanced and memory adjustment = 0%
  • if model is unbalanced and DIMM count per socket is 6 or 8 then it is unbalanced and memory adjustment = -50%

After determining the adjustment percent we would make the adjustment as we do currently

  • Actual core capacity = Total cores in the cluster
  • Applied weight = adjustment vs baseline specint
  • Adjustment = Adjustment Percent * (Actual core capacity – Applied weight)
With Skylake, it can matter how the DIMMs are arranged on the motherboard.  We have PM review that and so far all models are laid out in balanced fashion
Here is doc that shows the options

 

 

Processor Table

Here is the table of processors

SPEC 2017 Integer Ratings, refer to this Google Sheet

The data is based on the data published on

https://www.spec.org/cgi-bin/osgresults

SPECint Adjusted Core is simply adjusting cores vs a baseline CPU (Intel E5 2680 v2) of 4.44 SPEC 2017 Integer Ratings per Core

For example, the 2620 v4 has 16 cores but only at 4.14 SPEC 2017 Integer Ratings per core

  • SPEC 2017 Interger Ratings per adjusted cores = 16 * SPEC 2017 Integer Ratings int per core / Baseline = 16 * 4.14/4.44 = 14.91
  • Basically, this is saying the 2620 v4 has 16 cores, but it is equivalent to 14.91 baseline cores in 2 CPU nodes
  • For a single CPU, it would be just 14.91/2 = 7.455

Looking at a high-speed CPU, the 6128 has just 12 cores but screams at 6.89 SPEC 2017 Integer Rate per core

  • Specint Adjusted cores = 12 * specint per core/ baseline = 12 * 6.89/4.44 = 19.31
  • Basically, this is saying the 6128 has 12 cores, but it is equivalent to 19.31 baseline cores

For the complete list of CPUs supported by Sizer and their SPEC 2017 Integer Ratings, refer to this Google Sheet.

Continue reading “Processor Table”

Getting 1 node or 2 node clusters

New rules in Sizer for Regular Models and ROBO Models (October 2018)

Regular Models

Rules

  • All models included
  • All use cases are allowed – main cluster application, remote cluster application and remote snapshots
  • 3+ nodes is recommended

Summary

    • This is default in Sizer and is used most of the time
    • Fits best practices for a data center to have 3 or more nodes
    • Huge benefit as Sizer user can stay in this mode to size for 1175s or other vendor’s small models  if they want 3+ nodes anyhow. No need to go to Robo mode

 

  • Note: This gets rid of previous Sizer user headache as they want to size these models for 3+ nodes and get confused where to go

 

What changes

  • The smaller nodes such as 1175S are included in the list for running main cluster applications vs just remote applications and remote snapshots

ROBO Models

Rules

    • All models  but only some can size for 1 or 2 node
    • All use cases – main cluster application, remote cluster application and remote snapshots
    • All models can 3+ nodes depending on sizing requirements

 

  • ONLY Certain Models (aka ROBO models) can be 1 or 2 node

 

    • Note there is no CPU restriction.  Basically PM decides what models are ROBO and they can be 1 or 2 cpu

Summary

  • User would ONLY need to go to ROBO if they feel the solution fits in 1 or 2 node
    • If the size of the workloads require 3+ nodes, Sizer would simply report the required nodes and it would be no different recommendation than in regular
    • They feel 1 or 2 node restrictions is fine.  
      • The list of robo models are fine for the customer
      • RF for 1 node is disk level not node level
      • Some workloads like AFS require 3 nodes and so not available

What changes

  • All models can be used in ROBO where before it was just the ROBO models

No quoting in Sizer for Robo

Currently there are minimum number of units or deal size when quoting Robo.  Sizer will size the opportunity and will tell you that you should quote X units.  Given it takes 10 or more units and possibly you want to club together multiple projects, we disabled quoting from Sizer when includes 1175S

 

No Optimal Solution

At times no optimal solution can be found

Typical – No Optimal Solution Found Issues

When Sizer cannot find a solution given various settings and constraints it will simply say No Optimal Solution found. For example, if set node count to 3 nodes and ask for extremely large workloads it will say No Optimal Solution found as there is no 3 nodes solution to cover that many users.

So here is the list of common things users set that may cause No Optimal Solution.

  • Node count set too low in the Auto Sizing panel
  • Budget set too low in the Auto Sizing
  • Set models to say 1065 and ask for lot of demand that requires more than 8 nodes
  • NearSync is selected and using ROBO models like 1175S

What to do

  • Get back to Automatic Sizing with
    • No Node Count filter
    • No Max Budget filter
    • Set model types to All Regular models

 

Compression Sizing

Compression Settings

  • In each each workload,  there are the following compression settings
    • Disable compression for pre-compressed data.
      • This turns off compression in Sizer.  It is a good idea if  customer has mostly pre-compressed data for that workload.  Though it may be tempting to turn-off compression all the time to be conservative, it is hard to economically have large All Flash solutions without any compression.   It is also unrealistic that no data compression is possible.  Thus use this sparingly
    • Enable Compression
      • This is always ON for All Flash.  The reason for that is because post process compression is turned ON for AF as it comes out of the factory.
      • By default it is ON for Hybrid, but user can turn it OFF
    • Container Compression
      • There is a slider that can go from 1:1 (0% savings) to 2:1 (50% savings).
      • The range will vary by workload.  We do review pulse data on various workloads.  Typically 30% to 50%.  For Splunk, it is 15% maximum as the application does fair amount of pre-compression before stored in Acropolis.

What Sizer will do if Compression is turned ON

  • Post process compression is what Sizer sizes for.  The compression algorithm in Acropolis is LZ4 which runs about every 6 hours but occasionally LZ4-HC goes through cold tier data that is over day old and can compress it further.
  • First the workload HDD  and SSD requirements are computed without compression.  This would include the workload and RF overhead
  • Compression will then be applied.  .
  • Example.  Workload requires 4.39 TiB (be it SSD or HDD), RF3 is used for Replication Factor, and Compression is set to 30%
    • Workload Total in Sizing Details = 4.39 TiB
    • RF Overhead in Sizing Details = 4.39* 2 = 8.79 TiB  (with RF3 there is 2 extra copies while with RF 2 there is just one extra copy)
    • Compression Savings in Sizing Details = 30% (Workload + RF Overhead) = 30% (4.39 + 8.79) = 3.96 TiB

Deduplication

  • Deduplication does not effect the compression sizing

Local Snapshots

  • First the local snapshots are computed using what the user enter for daily change rate  and number of snapshots retained (hourly, daily, weekly)
  • RF is applied to the local snapshots as extra copies need to be made.
  • Compression is applied
  • Example
    •  Workload requires 4.39 TiB HDD, RF3 is used for Replication Factor, and Compression is set to 30%
    • Daily change rate = 1% with 24 hourly snapshots, 7 daily snapshots, 4 weekly snapshots
    • Local Snapshot Overhead in Sizing Details =  1.76 TiB  (explained in separate section)
    • Snapshots RF Overhead in Sizing Details = 2*1.76 TiB  = 3.52 TiB (with RF3 there is 2 extra copies while with RF 2 there is just one extra copy)
    • Compression Savings in Sizing Details = 30% (Workload + RF Overhead + Local Snapshot Overhead + Snapshots RF Overhead) = 30% * ( 4.39 + 8.79 + 1.76 + 3.52) = 30% * 18.46 = 5.54 TiB
      • Though a lot of numbers this is saying compression is applied to all the cold user data (not CVM)

Remote Snapshots

  • Using same example used in local snapshots but adding remote snapshots put on a different cluster
  • Remote Snapshot overhead in Sizing Details  = 6.64 TiB  (note this is just for the remote cluster, also explained in separate section)
  • Snapshots RF Overhead in Sizing Details = 13.28 TiB  (note this is just for the remote cluster and remember it is RF3)
  • Compression Savings in Sizing Details = 30% * ( 6.64 + 13.28) = 5.98 TiB
    • Though a lot of numbers this is saying compression is applied to all the cold user data (not CVM)

Misc

  • If compression is ON then just Pro or Ultimate  license in financial assumptions and in the financial analysis section of the BOM

Login Information and Vendor Support

This is a common concern with various users as they will see different login approaches and vendor support

Login Approaches

My Nutanix Login –  This is for registered partners and for all Nutanix employees.  Most sizings will be done using this login approach.  You can do a complete sizing including generating a BOM or budgetary quotes.    You can not attach a BOM to a SFDC opportunity or generate a quote in SFDC.

Salesforce Login –  This is for Nutanix employees with SFDC Account.  This is used by Nutanix field who has access to SFDC.  You can do a complete sizing including generating a BOM or budgetary quotes.    You also can attach a BOM to a SFDC opportunity or generate a quote in SFDC.

Vendor Support

When you create a scenario you select what vendor the scenario should use, meaning their models.  Nutanix employees have access to all current vendors.

Partners often have to be registered partners with a given vendor.  When a partner logs in via My Nutanix their roles are retrieved and only those vendors are allowed.

Partners that feel they should be registered for a given vendor can send email request to:  partnerhelp@nutanix.com

Prospect Sizer

For customers we do have Prospect Sizer.  Same Sizer which is updated when we post a new sprint but with limitations

  • Intended for a prospect to get an initial sizing for a Nutanix solution
    • Not intended to be the final configuration to get a quote
    • Not intended to provide full sizer capability  where competitors can see what Nutanix partner will most likely  bid
  • What it can do
    • Get a sizing for VDI, RDSH/XenApp, Server Virtualization, RAW
    • Allow the prospect to do some sizings within 3 day period
  • What it can not do
    • No financial analysis or financial assumptions.
    • No sizing details
    • Set to homogenous sizing only (no mixed or manual)
    • Standard sizing only (not aggressive or conservative)
    • No BOM
    • Limited to 3 scenarios and 3 workloads per scenario maximum
    • List pricing used for determining recommendation (not margin)
    • No customization allowed
    • No Resiliency and Availability section

To access Prospect Sizer the customer should go here

https://productsizer.nutanix.com

If they have not registered or need to re-register they will be directed to the registration page

Workload Modules Overview

To add a workload simply click on the Add Workload link.    That will pop up  the Add Workload page.

As shown below there are several workload options

  • VDI  – This is a virtual desktop environment for different user profiles
  • Xenapp –  This is a virtual desktop environment for different user profiles.
  • Server Virtualization –  This is for users wanting to deploy web applications
  • SQL Server –  This is for users wanting to deploy SQL Server
  • RAW Input –  This is to simulate other workloads
  • File Services (AFS).  –  This is for customers that want to store files on our infrastructure

 

  • Once the workload type is selected you can make edits as necessary

One thing that is nice in 3.0, is that all the workload parameters are all on one page.  Thus it is easier to make edits and see all the parameters at once

How to change a profile?

 

Many of the workloads have profiles like small, medium, large VM or SQL server.  VDI has different user profiles which can be edited

How to define snapshots and Disaster Recover?

If Data Protection is set to Yes than can have following options

  • Local snapshots – here snapshots are kept locally
  • Local and remote snapshots – Here snapshots are in both clusters
  • Disaster Recovery and Local and Remote snapshots –  Here in addition to snapshots we duplicate the resources required to run the workload on the remote cluster to support asynchronous disaster recovery.

 

If either Remote snapshots or Disaster Recovery is expected then a Remote Cluster needs to be specified.  Also Sizer needs to know the snapshot frequency in minutes, amount of change expected within a snapshot period, and number of snapshots retained.  Same policy is applied to local and remote snapshots.

Scenario Page Overview

Though it looks like a complicated page it is organized neatly into different parts.  Looking  from upper right and going clockwise

  • Sizing Options –  This shows current specification on how you want Sizer to do a sizing like Automatic with All Flash, Manual, etc.
  • Hardware summary.  Shows the model that was recommended.  Mulntiple rows cover mixed clusters with different types of nodes.
  • Sizing Summary.  This shows the current results for the recommendation.  The dials show the utilization for cpu, RAM, HDD, SSD for all clusters combined.    Later Sizer will allow for a per-cluster view
  • Sizing Details.  Here all the workloads are summarized and the total required resources are summed for all the workloads.   In the larger table the recommendation’s sizing details are shown in terms of cpu, ram, hdd, ssd usage to cover the workloads, RF2, CVM, etc
  • Workloads.  In the left panel are the list of workloads in the scenario
  • Actions button.  Here various actions can be performed on the scenario such as downloading a BOM.

Sizing Charts

The point of Sizing Charts is simply to give exact presentation of the Sizing Details in charts.  Any value in Sizing Charts is reflected in Sizing Details.  Sizing Details being thorough is frankly a table with a lot of numbers.  Sizing Charts then puts it in nice charts if user wants to see it.  Also good to capture in proposals

Separate is Storage Calculator which allows you to enter your own set of nodes and see extent store and a derived effective capacity.  That is NOT tied to the scenario in terms of workloads, recommendation, sizing details.  More info on different page.

Here is the Sizing Details for a Scenario

This is sample scenario that is used to describe the charts.

Here is the Sizing Charts for this scenario

There is an option to view all charts at once.  You can see there is a 1:1 coorespondance between the Sizing Details and the charts for Cores, Ram, HDD, and SSD.  Also shown is the breakout for SSD CVM and HDD CVM.  Maybe a technical customer wants to see the details but in graphical form and this would cover it

Each of these can be looked at individually so you can just look at what interests you

Cores

Here you see the sizing elements for Core.  The tooltip shows the applied weight adjustment and memory adjustments.  The donut shows the CVM, workload requirement and usable remaining cores.

RAM

 

This is the RAM chart.  In this scenario there is 17 TiB of RAM available.  CVM consumes 1 TiB, workload consumes 14.45 TiB and 2.04 TiB remaining

HDD

This shows HDD.  The total amount of HDD space is RAW plus storage efficiency which in this case is just compression.  Dedupe of ECX are two other technologies that save space.   So because of compression savings we actually can deal with a total of 418.49 TiB.  That number is the size of the donut chart.  From there things that consume space would be the workload, RF overhead, and CVM.  Usable remaining HDD then is 122.59 TiB.  In sizing details it is reported as Usable remaining capacity  (Assuming RF2) = 122.59/2 = 61.3 or Usable remaining capacity  (Assuming RF3) = 122.59/3 = 40.86

SSD

This shows SSD.  The total amount of SSD space is RAW plus storage efficiency which in this case is just compression.  Dedupe of ECX are two other technologies that save space.    For SSD (as explained in Sizing details) we do also add back oplog because being a write journal it is user space.  So because of compression savings  and adding back oplog we actually can deal with a total of 302.06 TiB.  That number is the size of the donut chart.  From there things that consume space would be the workload, RF overhead, and CVM.  Usable remaining HDD then is 31.34 TiB.  In sizing details it is reported as Usable remaining capacity  (Assuming RF2) = 31.34/2 = 15.67 or Usable remaining capacity  (Assuming RF3) = 31.34/3 = 10.45

HDD CVM

There is a chart that shows the CVM components on HDD.  In case of All Flash solution all CVM components are stored in SSD

SSD CVM

There is a chart that shows the CVM components on SSD.  In case of All Flash solution all CVM components are stored in SSD.

Questions

What is purpose of Storage Charts?   –  Simply to give a graphical picture of the numbers in Sizing Details.  Here you can see Cores, RAM, HDD, SSD that is consumed and what is available for RF2 or RF3.  It is tied to the scenario.  Thus changing workloads or models will change the charts

What is purpose of Storage Calculator?   –  It is separate from the scenario in terms of workloads and recommendations.  It is intended to allow user to scope amount of storage that is available for given set of nodes.  It answers what is the potential storage available for those nodes.

Do I need the Storage Charts?  –  Since it is 100% duplicate of Sizing Details, not necessarily.  It does give a graphical view though

Sizing Summary

Well the dials of course.  In our user focus groups everyone loved the dials and yep we kept them.  On left is the node count, power, and rack space.

 

What are the thresholds?

Just hover your mouse over CPU, RAM, HDD ,or SSD and can see it.    However, it is 95% for CPU and RAM, 90% for HDD and 98% for SSD.

re the dials set for N+1?

Depends!!   The dials show the utilization for what you configure the sizing for.  So in auto, there is aggressive  (n+0) , standard  (n+1), conservative (n+2).  In manual,  you are in the driver seat and define the models (ok can only have legitimate parts for that model).  So in manual the dials show you what utilization is available for the models you defined.