Consumer \ Optimize it? Dashboard

The Consumer \ Optimize it? dashboard complements the main VM configuration dashboard by displaying the actual VMs, with their relevant information. The dashboard is designed for vSphere administrators and the platform team, to facilitate follow-up action with the VM owners. The Consumer \ Optimize it? dashboard is one of the eight dashboards that check the environment for optimization opportunities. A suboptimal configuration might not impact performance or increase complexity, but it can be more expensive.

Design Considerations

The Consumer \ Optimize it? dashboard follows the same design considerations specified for the Consumer \ Correct it? dashboard. The eight Configuration > Review dashboards form an optimization flow and are designed as a set. Use them together, as you go through the optimization review process.

How To Use the Dashboard

The Consumer \ Optimize it? dashboard is a collection of tables (List View), that can be reviewed independently. Click the object name to navigate to the Object Summary page to view more configurations. There can be valid reasons why specific configurations are not followed. It is recommended that you discuss best practices with VMware.

• VM Reservation:
  • VM reservation causes a positive impact on the VM, but a negative impact on the cluster. Total reservation cannot exceed cluster capacity. This creates a suboptimal cluster as VMs do not use the entire assigned memory at the same time.
  • VM reservation places a constraint on the DRS placement and HA calculation. Avoid using reservation as a means to differentiate performance SLA among all the VMs in the same cluster. It is difficult to correlate CPU Ready with CPU Reservation. A VM CPU Ready does not improve two times because you increase its CPU reservation by two times. There is no direct correlation.
• Guest OS visibility:
  • Since your workloads are sharing resources and are over-committed, your operations are easier if you know what is running inside. This helps with monitoring and troubleshooting, resulting in optimal operations.
  • For critical VMs, consider logging the Guest OS, such as Windows and Linux, to capture errors that do not surface as metrics. These errors typically appear as events in the log files or in the event database in the case of Windows. Use vRealize Log Insight to parse Windows events into log entries that can be analyzed.
• Snapshot:
  • Old snapshots tend to be larger. They consume more space and have a higher chance of impacting performance.

Points to Note

See the Points to Note section as specified in the Consumer \ Correct it? dashboard. This dashboard follows the same design considerations, and as a result shares limitations and customization ideas.