The Desired State

The goal of Application Resource Management is to assure performance while maintaining efficient use of resources. When performance and efficiency are both maintained, the environment is in the desired state. You can measure performance as a function of delay, where zero delay gives the ideal QoS for a given service. Efficient use of resources is a function of utilization where 100% utilization of a resource is the ideal for the most efficient utilization.

If you plot delay and utilization, the result is a curve that shows a correlation between utilization and delay. Up to a point, as you increase utilization, the increase in delay is slight. There comes a point on the curve where a slight increase in utilization results in an unacceptable increase in delay. On the other hand, there is a point in the curve where a reduction in utilization doesn’t yield a meaningful increase in QoS. The desired state lies within these points on the curve.

You could set a threshold to post an alert whenever the threshold limit is crossed. In that case, you would never react to a problem until delay has already become unacceptable. To avoid that late reaction you could set the threshold to post an alert before the threshold limit is crossed. In that case, you guarantee QoS at the cost of over-provisioning — you increase operating costs and never achieve efficient utilization.

Instead of responding after a threshold is crossed, Turbonomic analyzes the operating conditions and constantly recommends actions to keep the entire environment within the desired state. If you execute these actions (or let Turbonomic execute them for you), the environment will maintain operating conditions that assure performance for your customers, while ensuring the lowest possible cost thanks to efficient utilization of your resources.