So you have virtualized and consolidated your physical datacenter into a fraction of the size (and COST!) it once was over the past several years (if you haven't you really should, but thats not what I am here to write about).  How did you go about doing it?  Did you utilize the proper tools like Capacity Planner with a <a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com" target="_blank">eGroup virtualization engineer</a> to maximize your consolidation?  If so, Great! If not, still not what we are here to talk about.  What I am here to tell you today is how you can take your datacenter from efficient to downright squeezing every drop of processing potential out of every last host resource you have as well as plan for virtual infrastructure growth in a proactive manner. 

That tool? <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-capacityiq/" target="_blank">VMWare's Capacity IQ</a>.

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If your virtualization migration took the typical approach and asked the question, "how many hosts will I need to run all my physical machines as virtualized workloads?" then you were most likely very pleased with the amount of hosts that you could consolidate to (as well as all the extra floor space).  When that question was asked and answered it was done so by analyzing the physical infrastructure you had and figuring out what would be needed to replace it in virtual machines (CPUs, Memory, etc...).  Now I want you to take a look at whether that web server or database server really needed all those physical processors or sticks of RAM in them to begin with. 
<ul>
	<li>When you moved them to virtual machines did they get the same amount of resources assigned to them that they had in the physical world?</li>
	<li>Are you struggling with Virtual Machine Sprawl and overzealous administrators that assign resource reservations because it is available moreso than needed?</li>
	<li>Would you like to know what equipment you are going to need to maintain growth next year? quarter? month?</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-capacityiq/" target="_blank">VMWare's Capacity IQ </a>(CapIQ) can answers these questions efficiently and clearly.  Deployed as a virtual appliance and registered with your virtual center server CapIQ can look at the utilization of assigned resources at the virtual machine, host and datacenter level while acquiring trending data to project how quickly your datacenter is growing.  Several features that are quickly available stand out.
<ul>
	<li>Over Committed/Under Committed Datacenter/Virtual Machine dashboard:  Gives you a heads up display of all the virtual machines that have resources assigned (Thresholds can be user defined or default) that outweigh the machines workload (over committed) or limit the performance (under committed).  This allows you fine tune the resources of each machine to give it what it needs and only what it needs taking the guesswork and admin egos out of the decision process.  Freeing up those resources for further consolidation by adding more virtualized workloads to the farm.</li>
	<li>Trending Analysis:  Take last years, last months data and trend it over time through trending dashboards so you can see the exact resource cost of a new project, budget and plan to meet the needs of next years workload and know the exact datacenter need for Memory, CPU, Disk I/O and Network Bandwidth.</li>
</ul>
Here are the some of the reports and views that come by default...
<ul>
	<li>Virtual Machine Capacity - Summary</li>
	<li>Capacity Efficiency - Trend</li>
	<li>Virtual Machine Optimization - Summary</li>
	<li>Configured Host Capacity - Distribution</li>
	<li>Host Utilization</li>
	<li>Clister or Host Capacity Usage - Trend</li>
	<li>Virtual Machine Deployment - Trend</li>
	<li>Host Deployment - Trend</li>
	<li>Average Deployed Virtual Machine Profile - Summary</li>
	<li>Idle Virtual Machines - List</li>
	<li>Undersized Virtual Machines - List</li>
	<li>Powered-Off Virtual Machines -List</li>
	<li>Common Virtual Machine Configurations - Dashboard</li>
</ul>
With all these "Quick Views" and a host of other exportable reports the strategic planning and growth budgeting process just became easy!

Contact <a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com">eGroup </a>or Comment below with any questions.