Live Optics | Optical Prime | Notes on VM Resource Distribution

VM resource distribution is the first in a series of graphs designed to help understand allocation of resources at the VM level in virtualized environments.

All Virtual Machines have some allocation of vCPU, Memory, and Capacity. However, they are not all allocated equally.

In many environments only a smaller percent might represent disproportionate ownership of these resources while the others are rather standard.

This graph tracks a 95th % value for the following:

• 95th % value of the total number of assigned vCPUs to all VMs
• 95th % value of the total assigned memory in GB to all VMs
• 95th % value of assigned capacity to all VMs  

Outlier VMs

If any Virtual Machine exceeds the allocation of 95^th % for any of these resources, it is considered unique.

These VMs are most likely to consume the most cost and would be the least likely to perform well in a Public Cloud.

It would be suggested to run a Live Optics Server and Virtualization assessment. Directly target these VMs to get further detail as to their workloads, configuration, and performance.

Standard VMs

Any Virtual Machine whose resource allocation in all three categories is below the 95^th % is considered standard.

The graph itself plots the number of Standard vs. Outlier VMs. It summarizes the total allocation of resources for both standard and Outlier VMs.

Each environment is different.

As no business is the same, there are no two environments that are identical. In some, the resource allocation might be uniform. This would lead to largely all blue or all standard VMs.

However, in others there might be any number of VMs that exceed the values to be considered Unique.

In general terms, these Unique VMs might have workloads that are not generic enough to be considered for Cloud or Hyperconverged.

As an example, VMs that are disproportionately heavy on storage assignments might be better suited for a more traditional infrastructure. CPU and Capacity can scale independently.

A second example might be those VMs that have a high number of assigned vCPUs.

Public Cloud providers have a limit on the number of vCPUs that can be assigned to a Virtual Machine. If the VM really needs this number of vCPUs to accommodate the workload, it might not be well suited for a Public Cloud.

Example Graph

The graph shows that only 39 (7%) of the 557 VMs exceed this 95^th % limit in any of the three categories.

However, a heavy number of resources are assigned only to these 39 VMs.

• ~13% of all vCPUs are assigned to these VMs.
• ~15% of all memory is assigned to these VMs.
• ~72% of all allocated capacity is assigned to only these 39 VMs!

For any questions, reach out to Live Optics Support at liveoptics.support@dell.com.