VM Population Trending Report

The VM Population Trending Report displays information about:

  • the number of VMs created during a specific period in the past, or
  • a future trend extrapolated from a specific period in the past

The values in this report change based on how memory and CPU are configured in the Resources page of the Cost Model wizard. For example, if you configure costs for allocated CPU, the number of CPUs are displayed in the report. If you configure the costs for reserved CPU, the amount in GHz is displayed.

You can select the currency for your report. All costs shown in the report will be converted to this currency. For currency conversion calculations, the conversion rate used is the rate that existed at the time the VM was active. For trend lines, the latest conversion rate is used.

The historical data used by this report can only be retrieved for vCenter cloud accounts. Once you have connected SCVMM and public cloud accounts, the historical data must build up over time.

Decide how you want to use the VM Population Trending Report as indicated in the following table:

With trending turned on, use the report to:

With trending off, use the report to:

  • forecast growth based on historical data (can include historical data generated before a cloud account was added to Commander)
  • determine resource requirements and justify purchases
  • forecast your requirements for operating systems and allows you to adjust your environment
  • forecast the trends in VM costs for storage, Operating Systems, and support
  • display the growth of VMs over a specified period
  • view the positive or negative trend of VM growth

If a Migrating Historical Data task is running, wait for it to complete before you generate this report. To see the status of the task, look at the Current Tasks tab at the bottom of the window or click the Historical Tasks tab in the Infrastructure, Applications, or Storage view. The report won't include all your data if you don't allow the task to complete.

Keep in mind the following points when you review a VM Population Trending Report:

  • If a VM is removed from inventory, the VM Population Trending Report shows changes in memory and CPU usage but doesn't show changes in disk usage or any VM count.
  • If a VM had its name changed after it was added to Commander, the new name doesn't appear in the list of VMs in VM Details. You must look for the original name.
  • Out-of-inventory VMs don't appear in the VM Population Trending Report after they have been discovered during a datastore scan.
  • If a host was added and historical events were retrieved, the VM Details section of the report doesn't display detailed resource information about the VMs on that server.
  • Templates and out-of-inventory VMs only incur costs for storage; they don't include costs for operating systems, CPU, and memory counts.
  • If VMs have been renamed or if the amount of reserved memory or CPU has been changed, those details appear in the VM Details section of the report.
  • Because it's not possible for Commander to retrieve historical data when an SCVMM cloud account is added, the VM Population Trending report may not display data for VMs in SCVMM cloud accounts until VM activity has occurred. Wait until the day after the cloud account was added to Commander to generate the report.

Report settings

Access:

Reports > Change & Configuration Management > VM Population Trending

or

Reports > Lifecycle Management > VM Population Trending

Available to:

All Access Rights Levels

  • Select the time range for the report either By Period or By Dates.

    When you set the report start date either by period or by specific date range, make sure the date is set to a date before the last purge date. Otherwise, the report can display incorrect values.

    For more information, see Time Range Filters

  • Interval: Select the interval range to be displayed in the graphs: daily, weekly, or monthly.

    If you are using SQL Server, and if during a selected time interval such as one month or one year, more than 2,000 VMs were removed from Commander, the VM Population Trending Report may not generate successfully. Reduce the selected time interval so that the count of VM removals is less than 2,000 or use advanced filters to restrict the scope of the report.

  • Trend Line Select from the following options:
    • No. of Periods: to display the trend line by a specified number of periods that you enter in the adjacent blank field
    • From Beginning: to display the trend line from the beginning of the reporting range
    • None: to display no trend line
  • Currency: Select the currency for the report. All costs shown in the report will be converted to this currency.
  • Add Advanced Filters: You can filter the report by cloud account, custom attributes and ownership.

    When filtering by a custom attribute, Commander retrieves the list of all VMs which existed in the location targeted by the report during the reporting period. Records for any VM for which there is no billing record are discarded. Then, records for any VMs that did not have the selected custom attribute applied on at least one of the following points in time are discarded:

    • The first day of the reporting period
    • The day the VM was created
    • The day the VM was deleted
    • The last day of the reporting period

    This means that it's possible for VMs with the filtering attribute applied on other dates to be excluded from the report.

For more information on setting report options, see Running and Scheduling Reports.

A maximum of 1000 records is displayed in the VM Details section. To ensure that all details for the VMs are displayed, use the filters to report on a subset of your VMs.