Platespin PowerRecon

[GlenMarquis2]

Anyone use PowerRecon?

Can any one rate PowerRecon Scenario Modeling for gauging how many Hosts you would need for x monitored physical server.

I am not agreeing with allot of the results at first hand, I would appreciate any feedback/input from anyone.

Thanks.

[gogogo5]

We have used PowerRecon v2.5.1 (though version 3.0 is out now).

Its a great way of understanding max and average utilisation of your servers. I haven't used the scenario modelling though. How many servers are you intending to monitor?

[GlenMarquis2]

How do these scenarios sound to you?

12 x HP C685c (4-Way CPU) to host 56 VMs

or

18 x HP C465c (2-Way CPU) to host 56 VMs

Anyone think that this is correct none of the servers are particulaly heavily used.

I'd be greatful for your input...

[gogogo5]

how much memory do you intend to install in your servers? You'll probably find your ESX hosts will eat memory before CPU.

[Borat_Sagdiev]

Definitely a good product. Make sure you follow a couple of golden rules:

1. Analyze each target for at least 30 days; if anything is going to happen to a server it will most likely happen in any 30 day span.

2. Use experience and common sense, do not rely strictly on Recon

I have not used version 3.0 yet, but the previous releases were very nice. I laaake!

[GlenMarquis2]

Yes using common sense says to me that it is floored where I would expect to get 3/4 VMs per core this is DEV by the way so a 2-way quadcore would easily provide 16 VMs, PowerRecon is saying 3/4 VMs per host.

[LoveGolf · Accepted solution]

Contact the PlateSpin support guys, they can likely explore whether or not it is something with the way you are running the scenario modeller or with the product.

[davidbarclay]

We find you have to play with the disk and network i/o modelling options. By default they are crazy.

Also be sure to look at the HyperThreading multiplier options - otherwise you will be modelling HT as 2 x CPU (which is far from the truth).

In summary, find out what is tripping the scenario to add more ESX servers - it's probably network or disk (set them to 80% or higher).

Dave