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Features and Benefits

 

Problems Solutions
Managing Service Levels
Business Problem:
Lack of SLA visibility and accountability leads to:
Poor service levels
  • Inefficient business process
  • IT wastes time gathering information for analysis
 Solution:
Use Host Availability Cube from Platform Analytics for end-to-end SLA visibility in your Platform LSF environment to pinpoint root-cause for low availability

Key Benefits:
  • Objectively assess key metrics
  • Measure performance against SLAs
  • Identify problems / improve business planning / gain efficiencies
Finding resources for a new project

Business Problem:
Lack of visibility on project workload and resource consumption to determine whether existing resource level can accommodate an unplanned but high-priority project. Possible results include:

  • Delays in starting project while waiting for new hardware, can result in missing critical window for product introduction
  • Incurring unnecessary costs, by over-provisioning hardware

 

Solution:
Use the Job Slot Utilization Cube and Pending Reasons Cube to understand resource requested vs. actual use, optimize existing workload to free up resource for new project

Key Benefits:
  • Find new capacity with existing assets
  • Avoid costs & save time
  • Reduce cycle times by identifying opportunities for efficiency gains
Managing project workloads more effectively
Business Problem:
Lack of visibility on resource consumption among projects over time may result in:
  • Over consumption of resources by certain users or projects affects performance of other projects and affects ability to accurately predict project completion schedules
  • Abusive or problematic usage patterns aren’t detected until they negatively affect time-to-market
 Solution:
Key performance indicators in the Workload Cube (CPU time used, average runtime/job, average turnaround time, average pending time) validate fair sharing of resource and that jobs are running optimally over time

Key Benefits:
  • Improve visibility into project workload & allocation by project
  • Gain efficiency, improve time to market
  • Reduce avoidable delays
Finding and Removing Project Related Bottlenecks
Business Problem:
Lack of flexible root cause analysis tool that shows exact causes for job delays or failure to meet SLAs results in:
  • Missed project schedules and delays in time-to-market
  • Inaccurate capacity planning, adding unnecessary resources that do not improve pending time, and waste money
 Solution:
Use Workload cube to conduct root cause analysis to identify bottlenecks

Key Benefits:
  • Minimize project delays
  • Quickly identify root causes
  • Reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary new purchases
 Optimizing Global Resources 
Business Problem:
Business HQ lacks visibility on how resource are being used among different business units resulting in:
  • Missed opportunities to share or consolidate resources among business units across the globe
  • Difficulty in carrying out corporate-wide resource planning
 Solution:
Multiple sites support provides global view of cluster environment with the same set of metrics used to measure performance of all clusters regardless of location

Key Benefits:
  • Create a global view of your assets
  • Reduce iterative delays between headquarters and remote geographies
  • Compare business units globally using a consistent set of metrics
  • Find opportunities for resource sharing and consolidation
Knowing when to purchase more licenses
Business Problem:
Capacity planners lack details to understand whether existing distribution of licenses by design centers are effective resulting in:
  • Project delays due to lack of license availability
  • Increased project costs due to unnecessary license purchases
  • Lack of supporting evidence for additional license purchases
 Solution:
Platform Analytics provides License Utilization Cubes and Denial Cubes for end-to-end visibility on peak license usage and denials across design centers for root cause analysis

Key Benefits:
  • Discover and analyze license usage data directly from FLEXLM
  • Avoid spending on costly license reporting solutions
  • Save costs by understanding license usage patterns
  • Reduce denials & improve productivity
Understanding License Usage Patterns
Business Problem:
Sampled license usage data collected from FlexLM servers are not accurate enough to account for short jobs between sampling periods causing:
  • Inability to account for which project or user are using the most license resources or showing abnormal usage patterns
 Solution:
Platform Analytics integrates with FLEXNet Manager to collect accurate license event data and correlated with Platform LSF job data such that we can account for all license check-in/out events triggered by an Platform LSF job

Key Benefits:
  • Correlate license usage information from FLEXNet Manager with job related data from LSF
  • Obtain a full picture of  license use and trending  by project and by individual
  • Spot unusual or abusive activity
Tracking License Costs
Business Problem:
Business analysts are unable to accurately track license costs so:
  • License costs cannot be accounted for, usage of expensive licenses cannot be justified to business executives
  • License usage patterns cannot be used as evidence in renewal negotiations with vendors
  • Chargeback models cannot be implemented to recover license costs from users
  • Variable costing cannot be used as an incentive to drive more efficient license usage
 Solution:
License Consumption cubes captures license minutes for each license feature used by a Platform LSF job. Unit cost per license feature for both core and non-core business hours can be defined in the Platform Analytics Console, so that costs can be associated with users who generate license consumption activities with their Platform LSF jobs

Key Benefits:
  • Attribute costs to license utilization by project and individual
  • Apportion costs accurately based on measured utilization
  • Implement internal chargeback or operate as a service provider
Implementing pay-per-use (PPU) & chargeback accounting
Business Problem:
Lack of flexibility to use premium priced licenses on a more advantageous as needed basis which means you can’t:
  • Attribute costs to license utilization by project and individual
  • Apportion costs accurately based on measured utilization
  • Implement internal chargeback or operate as a service provider
 Solution:
Use Platform Analytics to help optimize costs by provisioning the correct number of owned licenses, and avoiding scenarios where costly PPU licenses are used inappropriately

Key Benefits:
  • Discover the optimum number of licenses to own vs. rent
  • Avoid over-provisioning while still addressing peak demand periods
  • Negotiate more advantageous enterprise contracts with suppliers