Extracting Resource Allocation Data for Chargeback in a HP Virtual Server Environment for HP Integrity Servers

Workload Hierarchies
One way that the VSE architecture helps determine resource usage for specific users is by way of
hierarchical nesting. Figure 8 shows the possible combinations in the VSE hierarchy from physical
server through different workload types.
Complex Server
nPar
Complex Server
nPar
Pset
Complex Server
npar
FSS
Complex Server
nPar
Integrity
VM
Complex Server
nPar
vPar
Complex Server
nPar
vPar
Pset
Complex Server
nPar
vPar
FSS
Server
Server Server Server
Integrity
VM
FSSPset
* HP Integrity VM is HP Integrity Server Only
Figure 8 Possible workload hierachies in VSE
Because of the hierarchies, VSE can contain intermediate workloads that are not associated with
billable end users from the IT perspective. Later sections of the paper will discuss how to identify or
filter out these workloads from the output of the VSE tools. An addition kind of workload which is not
associated with billable end users is the “Other” workload type. VSE can create “Other” workloads
for its own management purposes when a whole OS workload is subdivided into virtual machines,
psets, or fss workloads. VSE uses these Other workloads to contain everything in the whole OS
workload that is not associated with a user-defined workload. Other workloads are not typically of
interest for chargeback purposes.
Figure 9 is an example an environment with two physical servers, one a complex and one not which
illustrates that not every workload in a VSE environment is of interest from a billing prospective.
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