Cisco Workload Optimization Main Features
Workload Optimization Manager continuously analyzes workload consumption, costs, and compliance constraints and automatically allocates resources in real time. It helps ensure performance by giving workloads the resources they need, when they need them. When fully automated, the self-managing platform promotes a continuous state of health in the environment by making placement, scaling, and capacity decisions in real time. It empowers data center and cloud operators to focus on innovation—on bringing new products and services to market that promote digital transformation.
Target Integration
A target is a service that performs management in your virtual environment. Workload Optimization Manager uses targets to monitor workloads and to perform actions in your environment. The target configuration specifies the ports that Workload Optimization Manager uses to connect with these services. You must install Workload Optimization Manager on a network that has access to the specific services you want to set up as targets. For each target, Workload Optimization Manager communicates with the service through the management protocol that it exposes: the Representational State Transfer (REST) API, Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), XML, or some other management transport mechanism. Workload Optimization Manager uses this communication to discover the managed entities, monitor resource utilization, and perform actions.
Use the steps that follow to configure target integration:
Step 1. In the New User interface, click Try It Now. Another login page will open.
Step 2. Enter a username and password to log in.
Figure 3-21 shows the CWOM login page.
Figure 3-21 CWOM login page
Step 3. Click Settings and select Target Configuration (see Figure 3-22).
Figure 3-22 CWOM Target Configuration
You are now ready to add targets.
View Your Global Environment
When you log in to Workload Optimization Manager after setup, the Home page is the first view you see. By default, the Home page gives you a global view of your environment. From the Home page, you can do the following:
• Use the Supply Chain Navigator to set the Home page focus and see details about your environment.
• Display an overview of your environment’s supply chain.
• Display an overview and details about the entities in your environment.
• Navigate to other areas of Workload Optimization Manager, including:
• Search: Set the session scope.
• Plan: Plan deployments and model what-if scenarios.
• Place: Place a consumer on a different provider.
• Settings: Configure Workload Optimization Manager.
• Whenever you are in a Workload Optimization Manager session, you can always click the Cisco Home icon to return to the Home page.
Figure 3-23 illustrates CWOM Global Environment view.
Figure 3-23 CWOM Global Environment view
Automate Actions
The visibility into the entities that exist in your environment and the relationships among them underlies Workload Optimization Manager’s core value: real-time decision automation in the data center and cloud. To make the right placement, scaling, and capacity decisions, the platform needs to understand the entire environment. Workload Optimization Manager models your environment as a market of buyers and sellers linked together in a supply chain. This supply chain represents the flow of resources—from the data center, through the physical tiers of your environment, to the virtual tier, and to the cloud. By managing relationships between these buyers and sellers, Workload Optimization Manager provides closed-loop management of resources—from the data center through to the application. You see the supply chain and use detail across entities, and the platform sees what needs to be done to achieve continuous health in the environment.
Workload Optimization Manager actions can be implemented manually (with a mouse click) by an operator, on command (for example, based on a change management process), or automatically as events arise. Users can define the level of automation by action type and at multiple levels of detail; for example, you can automate actions for individual virtual machines, for a cluster, or for a data center.
To configure the level of automation for actions, use the steps that follow.
Step 1. In Home menu, select Actions.
Step 2. Click to check the box for the entity for which you want to automate the action (for example, select a virtual machine).
Step 3. Click Configure Automation.
Figure 3-24 illustrates CWOM automation.
Figure 3-24 CWOM automation
Step 4. On the Setup Automation screen, open the Action Type menu and choose a type. Workload Optimization Manager performs many general types of actions, such as the following:
Provision: Add resource capacity, usually by adding an entity.
Decommission: Stop, suspend, or remove an entity.
Place: Place a consumer on a different provider.
Right size: Change the allocation of resources for an entity.
Step 5. Choose the scope and the action execution level.
Figure 3-25 shows CWOM automation execution.
Figure 3-25 CWOM automation execution
Step 6. Click Save.
Plan for the Future
Workload Optimization Manager can simulate certain scenarios in the environment before the changes are implemented. It uses the same underlying common data model (the supply chain market) for both real-time performance assurance and simulation. This unique capability helps ensure that simulations can be performed seamlessly in the environment and that real-time workload resource demands and infrastructure resource availability are taken into account. Table 3-2 details the plan types in Cisco Workload Optimization Manager
Table 3-2 Plan Types in Cisco Workload Optimization Manager
Set Policies and Service Level Agreements
Typically, in data center environments, tiers of resources are made available for various groups. By creating policies to match applications to the appropriate resources, organizations can help ensure that lower-tier applications are not using very costly resources. Workload Optimization provides the capability to create and customize policies, enabling you to set the way that Workload Optimization Manager analyzes resource allocation, displays resource status, and displays or performs actions. Figure 3-26 shows the CWOM settings detailed in the following list:
Figure 3-26 CWOM settings
• Groups: Groups assemble collections of resources for Workload Optimization Manager to monitor and manage.
• User Management: As an administrator, you can specify accounts that grant specific users access to Workload Optimization Manager.
• Budget Management: A budget group specifies the monthly expenditure you want to devote to keeping your workload on the public cloud.
• Updates: You can check Cisco Workload Optimization Manager version details and the availability of more recent versions.
• Maintenance Options: You can configure HTTP proxy, export state, configuration files, and logging levels.
• Templates: You can view a variety of templates, including virtual machine, Cisco UCS, and public cloud templates.
• License: You can view the total number host licenses, license features in use, and license expiration dates.
