VMWare vRealize Operations: Migration Planning

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As an Architect one thing you are constantly hit with is capacity planning, migration planning, and cost savings meetings.  I am sure anyone reading this article has been sitting in their office and someone ask, “Hey could you run some quick estimate numbers on what X would cost if we performed Y?” This article is an example of someone wanting to refresh a App consisting of a certain number of VMs and wanting to know ball park pricing on the different placement options.

My Real World Example

We are going to call the application App1.  App1 owner has come to the Architecture team and wants to perform a refresh of their application.  They have a certain dollar figure from their budget in mind for this refresh project.  The ask from App1 owner is where is the most economical place to refresh their application.  The company’s primary cloud provider is Azure but you have a small foot print in AWS as well.

How to Run the Planning Report

Machine generated alternative text:
vm vRealize Operations Manager 
Home 
Alerts 
Environment 
Administration 
Q 
BACK 
Quick Start 
Operations Overview 
Optimize Performance 
Workload Optimization 
Rightsizing 
Recommended Actions 
Optimize Capacity 
Overview 
Reclaim 
What-If Analysis 
Troubleshoot 
Workbench 
Virtual Machine 
VSAN 
using Logs 
Compliance 
Manage Applications 
Discover Services 
Monitor Applications 
What-lf Analysis 
Overview 
o 
Saved Scenarios 
Workload planning: Traditional 
Workload 
Workload planning: Hyperconverged 
c 
Workload 
Setup a scenario to 'deploy applications' by adding new workload or 'deprecate applications' by 
removing existing workload You can also evaluate the impact ot 'reclaiming inefficient workload' 
using remove workload scenario. 
by 
Plan tor 'future workload' to be deployed on vSAN environment with VMS associated with specific 
storage policy related factors (such as FTT, RAID), to evaluate if the usable capacity can cater to 
workload to be deployed. You can also evaluate the impact ot 'reclaiming inefficient workload' an 
vSAN cluster by using remove VMS scenario. 
ADD VMS 
REMOVE VMS 
ADD VMS 
REMOVE VMS 
Infrastructure planning: Traditional 
Infrastructure 
Infrastructure planning: Hyperconverged 
Infrastructure 
Determine the impact ot adding or removing specific capacity in your environment. If you are planning 
to upgrade the hosts in a cluster, setup a stacked scenario to 'Refresh hardware' with combination of 
remove existing capacity trom cluster and add new capacity to cluster. 
Determine the impact ot adding specific hyperconverged capacity in your vSAN environment You can 
plan to add new vSAN ready nodes to your vSAN cluster to evaluate the impact ot increase in HCI 
ADD HOSTS 
REMOVE HOSTS 
capacity 
ADD HCI NODES 
REMOVE HCI NODES 
Datacenter Comparison: private Cloud 
Comp•arison 
Migration planning: public Cloud 
Migration 
Evaluate the possibility ot moving workload across different datacenters and clusters in your private 
cloud. You can compare cost of workload across various datacenters so as to optimize and decide 
best fitting datacenter tor the workload under consideration. 
COMPARE DATACENTERS 
Evaluate the possibility of moving workloads across different clouds. You can compare capacity and 
cost of workload across vSphere, AWS. Azure. GCA, EM Cloud by default or any cloud provider of 
choice by uploading the rate card as prerequisite. 
PLAN MIGRATION

Go to Home > Optimize Capacity > What-if Analysis > Migration Planning: Public Cloud

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Migration Planning: Public Cloud 
SCENARIO NAME 
SELECT CLOUDS 
APPLICATION PROFILE 
RUN SCENARIO 
VMC on AWS 
Select Region 
aws 
Amazon Web Services 
Select Region 
IBM Cloud 
Select Region 
Microsoft Azure 
Select Region 
•Please note that you can select maximum of 3 clouds at a time for comparison 
• VMC on AWS cannot be chosen along with other public clouds as VMC on AWS follows a host based pricing model and rest of the public clouds folQ' instance based. 
ADD CLOUD PROVIDERS 
O Configure 
Select your workload 
CPU 
Memory 
Disk Space 
Operating System 
Number of VMS 
CANCEL 
C) Import from existing VM 
v VCPU 
Any OS 
SAVE

You will come to this screen and as always you need to give your scenario a name.  In this case I am call it Test-App1.

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Microsoft Azure 
Select Region 
south-africa-west - South Africa West 
south-india - South India 
uae-central - UAE Central 
uae-north - UAE North 
united-kingdom-south - LIK South 
united-kingdom-west - UK West 
us-central - Central LIS 
us-dod-central - US DOD Central 
us-dod-east - US DOD East 
us-east - East US 
us-east-2 - East US 2 
us-north-central - North Central US 
us-south-central - South Central LIS

Select your Azure Region

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APPLICATION PROFILE 
RUN SCENARIO 
C) Configure 
O Import from existing VM 
SAVE 
Select one or more VMS to perform comparative analysis of private cloud capacity and cost with that of public cloud 
SELECT VMS 
CANCEL

If the VMs won’t change at all and you want a like for like sizing then it may be easier to select Import from existing VM and use your app code to select the VMs.

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APPLICATION PROFILE 
O Configure 
Select your workload 
CPU 
Memory 
Disk Space 
Operating System 
Number of VMS 
C) Import from existing VM 
v VCPU 
250 
Windows

If you have new requirements or do not feel like going through and selecting existing VMs then enter the stats.

Machine generated alternative text:
Migration Planning: Public Cloud 
SCENARIO NAME 
SELECT CLOUDS 
APPLICATION PROFILE 
RUN SCENARIO 
Test-Appl 
VMC on AWS 
Amazon Web Services 
aws 
IBM Cloud 
Select Region 
Microsoft Azure 
us-east-2 - East L v 
•Please note that ycnu can select maximum of 3 clouds at a time for comparison 
• VMC on AWS cannot be chosen along with other public clouds as VMC on AWS follows a host based pricing model and rest of the public clouds folQ' instance based. 
ADD CLOUD PROVIDERS 
O Configure 
Select your workload 
CPU 
Memory 
Disk Space 
Operating System 
Number of VMS 
CANCEL 
C) Import from existing VM 
v VCPU 
250 
Windows 
SAVE

Your page should look something like this and select Run Scenario

Machine generated alternative text:
Migration Planning: Public Cloud 
Results: 
Test-Appl 
private Cloud 
Richardson (DALPRDESXVlC02) 
Non-produc tion 
US$1,390 
Cost bssed on 700% utilization 
Custom Workload 
0 4 VCPU 
16 
250 
[G Windows 
12 virtual machines 
Microsoft Azure 
Select region: 
us-east-2 - East US 2 
US$1,855 
B4MS 
4 V CPU 
16 
288 ea @ 
Windows 
Instance cost: US$155 
Total cost: US$1,855 
aws 
Select clouds tor comparison 
Amazon Web Services 
Select region

You will need to select your onprem datacener and the cluster as a comparison.

Remember how I said we would also take a look at AWS costs?  This is an easy place to now select the AWS region and click add f you forgot in the previous page.

Machine generated alternative text:
Migration Planning: Public Cloud 
Results: 
Test-Appl 
private Cloud 
Richardson (DALPRDESXVlC02) 
Non-produc tion 
US$1,390 
Cost bssed on 700% utilization 
Custom Workload 
0 4 VCPU 
16 
250 
[G Windows 
12 virtual machines 
EDIT 
SAVE 
x 
Microsoft Azure 
Select region: 
us-east-2 - East US 2 
US$1,855 
B4MS 
4 V CPU 
16 
288 ea @ 
Windows 
Instance cost: US$155 
Total cost: US$1,855 
x 
Amazon Web Services 
Select region: 
us-east-2 - LIS East (Ohio) 
US$2,360 
t3a.xlarge 
4 V CPU 
16 
250 ea @ 
Windows 
Instance cost: US$197 
Total cost: US$2,360 
x 
aws 
Select clouds tor comparison 
IBM Cloud 
Select region

Now you have your pricing numbers and can save the scenario to refer back to later.

Outcome

It is easy to see that Azure in my scenario was cheaper than AWS but onprem was cheaper than Azure.  If the App owner’s primary motivation is financial cost then Onprem is the way to go.  However, this is where your recommendations as an architect come into place and price is not always the deciding factor.  For instances, there may be services you can leverage in the cloud that you do not have onprem and to bring that service onprem would drive up the cost of the onprem pricing models.  If you are just seeking financial comparisons of your onprem vs your public cloud providers this is a quick tool to use.

Summary:
There are a lot of tools out there to dig into calculating cost.  Every public cloud provider has their own tool that is updated frequently.  I like to use vROPs as a quick eyeball test for estimated cost to toss over to the requesting person prior to performing a deep dive into the exact VMs required, their profiles, and their individual costs.  As always, I hope y’all found this helpful.

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