Capacity Management Methodology

The Capacity Management Methodology

The Capacity Management Methodology (CMM) has been conceived and developed by skilled Consultants with many years experience in the field of Computer Capacity Management.

CMM encapsulates the processes and procedures required to successfully implement Capacity Management for any I.T. infrastructure.

It is technology independent, and enables the quickest possible development of “end-to-end” Performance and Capacity Management, tailored to meet specific client requirements.

CMM implementation is modular in approach. With the assistance of the client, existing processes are clearly identified, analysed, and matched against the CMM model. Any gaps are thus easily apparent, and proposals to address any shortfalls by adapting processes from CMM, are recommended as appropriate. Before looking at the methodology it is important to define the overall processes:

Capacity Management

The strategic process of planning to provide sufficient I.T. resources in a cost-effective manner to meet customer service needs and business objectives

Performance Management

This is the tactical process of managing workloads, or applications, on a day-to-day basis in order to achieve service and throughput requirements in a timely and cost-effective manner

Application Management

This is the process of profiling applications throughout the development lifecycle from design through to production, and by testing provide insight into the potential and actual capacity requirements and performance, identifying bottlenecks and recommending remedial action to meet design criteria and minimise cost

The above three processes are closely related and in implementation may share procedures.

Their objectives may be achieved through the implementation of the six sub-processes identified and outlined below.

Sub-Process Definitions

Sub-process 1 – Business Growth

Determine business, service, technology and growth expectations This sub-process focuses upon retrieving the necessary information relating to business objectives, service requirements, technology directions and business/workload growth estimates. Taking into consideration current budget policies, technology roadmap and infrastructure, the plans and building blocks to effectively manage individual application/workload/server and overall infrastructure performance and capacity are produced.

Sub-process 2 – Data Collection

Collect and collate system performance and capacity measurement data This sub-process includes activities to define data that needs to be collected by data collection tools and the summarisation/extraction of pertinent performance and capacity information into databases that can be used for current analysis (sub-process 3), future forecasting (sub-process 4) and report creation (sub-process 5)

Sub-process 3 – Monitoring

Review current utilisation and service responsiveness taking corrective actions when required This sub-process encompasses all the activities needed to manage day-to-day performance and capacity. It also includes pro-active activities for avoiding problems and the activity to determine the relationships between currently reported usage and service to business functions, workload drivers and/or transactions

Sub-Process 4 – Capacity Planning

Predict future system resource requirements, recommend configuration changes and identify costs This sub-process drives the forecast of capacity requirements and performance prediction, both in terms of estimated loads (CPU, Disk, Memory, bandwidth, etc.) and specific configuration(s) needed to satisfy the requirements. Generic unit costs will be applied to enable initial approximate cost estimates to be derived, and which may be used for real cost predictions using costs from the Procurement Process. Forecasting activities include projections for specific applications/workloads/servers, as well as for the overall infrastructure

Sub-process 5 – Reporting

Distribute and communicate capacity and performance information using various reporting media and methods This sub-process determines what needs to be communicated, to whom, and in what form. The critical activity is defining effective reports, one of which is the master Capacity Plan. This sub-process is used to communicate deliverables from other sub-processes. The communication vehicle is based upon the needs of the recipient

Sub-process 6 – Performance Engineering

Profile specific Applications or Services (composite infrastructure) This sub-process is invoked when specific service capacity requirements and/or service performance optimisation is required. Input is taken from sub-process 2 or specific performance testing, evaluation is driven through sub-processes 3 and 4, and results communicated through sub-process 5. Output from this sub-process is also input to sub-process 4 for Capacity Planning purposes

The methodology then takes these sub-processes and expands them into the individual procedures needed to run a successful Capacity Management function.

The Capacity Management Methodology

Sub-Process Definitions

The methodology then takes these sub-processes and expands them into the individual procedures needed to run a successful Capacity Management function.

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