Hardware

To make it easier to find different types of hardware, they are displayed on separate tabs:

•All OSIs – displays all the OSIs recorded in License Optimizer.

•Hosts – displays OSIs that have a partition, a pool, or a virtual machine assigned to them.

•Servers – displays OSIs that have an operating system that has the Server Software check box selected in the Software Library.

•Clients – displays OSIs that have an operating system that DOES NOT have the Server Software check box selected in the Software Library.

•Clusters – displays all clusters that have been associated with hardware, as well as the Cluster Management Software that the cluster is assigned to.
To assign a cluster in the list to Cluster Management Software, select one or more clusters, then click Assign Cluster Management Software from the gear menu. The Assign Cluster Management Software dialog appears, enabling you to assign the clusters to the selected Cluster Management Software.

•Virtual Machines – displays only virtual machines where the partition type is a known type of virtual machine.

•Partitions – displays any partition type that is a known type of partition.

•Virtual Apps/ Remote Desktops – displays all Virtual App or Remote Desktop instances.

•Storage Devices – displays storage devices.

•Cloud Devices – displays cloud devices.

•Cluster Management – displays the available Cluster Management Software. You can drill down each listed item to view all clusters that the item is managing, as well as the OSI under each cluster. Click the gear menu to add or edit Cluster Management Software.

Partitions are divided into two parts:

• Host
• All other partition types

Make sure you record the partition type correctly to ensure that specific vendor reconciliations give the correct results. License Optimizer recognizes specific partition types versus specific software vendor metrics to adhere to the vendors’ virtualization licensing rules.

On selecting the partition type, you can store the following fields with the OSI record:

Hardware Fields	Used in Reconciliation?
CPU Count Used to calculate the liability for some metrics (for example, the IBM PVU metric).	Yes
Cores per CPU Used to calculate the liability for some metrics (for example, the IBM PVU metric).	Yes
Threads Per Core Used to calculate the liability for some metrics (for example, Microsoft’s Processor metric).	Yes
Device Info Used to store information such as Vendor, Brand and model, which is then used to calculate the liability for some metrics (for example, Oracle database where the device info is required to look up the Oracle Core Factor).	Yes

For virtual machines, you can store the following fields with the OSI record:

Hardware Fields	Used in Reconciliation?
vCPU Count Used to calculate the liability for some metrics where the virtual machine is licensed rather than the host.	Yes
Entitlement Capacity Used to calculate the liability for some metrics where the virtual machine is licensed rather than the host.	Yes
Parent OSI The host machine where the partition is installed. A partition cannot exist without a Parent OSI.	Yes

You can either import hardware into License Optimizer, or you can add hardware records manually.

For information on how to import hardware, see Importing data.

To manually add hardware:

1.Click Add from the Hardware gears menu.
The Add OSI dialog appears.

2.Complete the required fields, then click OK.
The OSI record is added.

If you select the Open OSI Edit After Create check box, the Edit OSI page is shown populated with the details of the created OSI record.

For information about editing an OSI, see Editing an OSI

Duplicate

You can create similar OSIs easily and quickly by selecting an OSI in the grid, and then clicking Duplicate from the gears menu. The duplicate OSI appears in the Add OSI page for you to edit.

Quick Edit

You can edit the Business Unit, OSI Status, and Location fields for multiple hardware records at the same time by selecting the required records and then clicking Quick Edit from the Hardware page gears menu to display the Hardware Quick Edit dialog. Make the required changes, then click Save.

License Optimizer visually represents complex virtualization scenarios including shared pools and virtual machines in the Hardware Groups pane.

You can also use the Hardware Groups pane to view and create relationships between OSIs where there are shared pools, virtual machines, clusters, and other partitions.

To display the Hardware Groups pane for an OSI, select the OSI that you want to display the partition groups or cluster groups for, then click the green arrow to the right of the hardware grid record. The Hardware Groups pane appears. You can then switch between the Partition Groups tab and the Cluster Groups tab as required.

Partition groups enable you to set child OSIs for host servers and to create pools. To create a partition group, click the green arrow alongside the required OSIs in the Hardware grid to add them to the Partition Groups tab of the Hardware Groups pane.

To create a pool:

1. Click Create Pool on the in-line Partition Group gears menu to the left of the partition group,
The Create Pool dialog appears.

2.Type a Pool Name and select the Partition Type for the pool, then click OK.
The pool is automatically added to the host you selected.

3.After you have created the pool, has you can add OSIs to the pool either by clicking and dragging the required OSI into the pool, or clicking Make Child OSI from the in-line Partition Group gears menu to the left of the OSI.
Selecting the Make Child OSI option displays the Make Child dialog, where you can set or amend the parent OSI value for OSIs, and amend vCPU and / or Entitled Capacity settings (depending on the partition type setting).

You can create cluster groups from the Cluster Groups tab of the Hardware Groups pane.

To create a cluster group:

1.Add at least one OSI to the Cluster Groups tab by clicking the green arrow to the right of the required OSI in the Hardware grid.
The Create Cluster button appears.

2.Click Create Cluster on the Cluster Groups tab.
The Create Cluster Group dialog appears.

3.Specify the Group Name for the cluster group and select the Cluster Type.

4.Set the Status for each selected OSI, then click OK.

When you have created a Cluster Group, you can add additional OSIs to it by adding the OSI to the Cluster Groups tab of the Hardware Groups pane using the green arrow to the right of the required OSI in the Hardware grid, and then dragging the OSI into the group.

To remove an OSI from a group, click alongside the relevant OSI in the group.

You can also edit or delete the group using the in-line Cluster Group gears menu to the left of each cluster group. Clicking Edit Group displays the Edit Cluster Group dialog where you can change the status of any OSIs within the cluster group.

For more information on clusters, see Clusters.