SmartPeak WLM provides comprehensive workload management and optimization for servers, virtualized environments and desktops.

Smart Scheduler™

The Smart Scheduler allows the intelligent management of CPU resource by mapping business priorities or SLA agreements to how the CPU resource is allocated. The Smart Scheduler algorithm provides real-time calculations of the correct level of resources required for each application. Integrating directly with the Windows Scheduler, SmartPeak WLM dynamically adjusts the base priority of each task to ensure that the correct level of resource is always given.

Unlike the Windows Scheduler alone, where the application or user which ‘shouts the loudest, gets the most’, the SmartPeak WLM out of the box configuration guarantees each user and application an equal or fair allocation of resources. Administrative accounts and system processes are granted an elevated share of CPU time, ensuring that administrators can efficiently perform their duties regardless of how busy the machine is.

CPU Share Factors

Shares of the available CPU resources are assigned to users/groups and/or applications using Share Factors. If an application is assigned a share factor that is twice that of a second application, then the former will generally be entitled to consume twice as much CPU time as the latter.

CPU Reservations

CPU reservations can be used to provide mission critical applications with a guaranteed minimum amount of CPU time. For example, if an application is allocated a reservation of 20% it will continue to receive priority access to the processor resources while it is using 20% or less of the processor resources. After exceeding 20%, additional resource requirements will be addressed according to the assigned Share Factors. If less than 20% is used, the remainder is made available to other applications.

CPU Soft Limits

Processes can be limited to only consuming a set amount of CPU when the machine is fully utilized. When the machine is not fully utilized all available CPU can be consumed by the target processes. However, these resources are immediately released for more important processes to use if and when required, thus limiting the target process according to the defined soft limit value.

CPU Hard Limits

A Hard Limit restricts CPU consumption of a given task. Unlike Soft Limits this is a physical restriction to the resource received by an application. For example, an application with a Hard Limit of 20% cannot possibly consume more than 20% of the CPU time at any time.

CPU Affinity Assignment

Affinity is a mechanism of restricting the access to particular processors by an application or user. On multiprocessor systems, this can be used to minimize the context switching of a given application.

CPU Thread Throttling™

Thread Throttling™ allows the setting of system wide CPU clamping policies, which automatically trigger when the system is heavily loaded and force any ‘over-consuming’ threads within each process to decrease their CPU usage.

SmartPeak WLM allows the administrator to configure minimum and maximum allocations of physical memory to applications or users. This ensures guaranteed levels of memory resource to critical processes whilst also offering the ability to limit memory consumption. The physical memory in use by a process can also be automatically trimmed based on specified events or states to release unused physical memory back to the operating system for redistribution.

Limits can be placed on the amount of virtual memory available to applications or users. When a limit is reached, further memory requests can either be denied, or result in the application being closed (immediately or with a prompt to save work), with the user being prevented from opening additional applications.

By automatically analyzing and optimizing the Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) loaded by applications, virtual memory overheads and system paging can be significantly reduced. Optimized DLLs are stored in a separate, persistent cache and loaded dynamically, leaving the original applications intact. This prevents memory load address collisions and the subsequent DLL relocating by the operating system, allowing multiple applications and users to share single instances of DLLs.

Network Throughput Limits and Quotas can be applied based on application, user/group, network protocol, port number and/or direction.  Network throughput limits allow network bandwidth usage to be restricted. Network Quotas can be applied to monitor, block or restrict network activity after a set usage quota has been reached.

Policies are defined for processor, memory and network management by creating application groups and using them to define resource sharing, reservations and limits. Policies may be further restricted to specific user and group accounts. Application states may also be included to provide precise control over applications delivered to desktops and Terminal Services/Citrix clients.

The integrated enterprise software deployment architecture allows SmartPeak software and configurations to be managed centrally, so administrators can apply rules to all servers and workstations from one MMC Console.  Configurations are created as standard MSI packages, meaning they can alternatively be deployed using third party deployment tools.

SmartPeak Management Reports for WLM provide the information necessary to record the use of system resources on a machine running SmartPeak WLM.  This can be used to charge for the use of a machine according to the workload.  In addition this can also be used for Capacity Planning purposes.

Reports can be obtained concerning the overall use of CPU and memory, in addition to detailed reports on the consumption of resources by given applications or users.

SmartPeak WLM is licensed based on the number of processor sockets available on each physical server. This license allows you to install multiple instances of the product agents in virtual environments, in addition to maximizing the use of multi-core CPUs, providing economical workload management and a cost effective solution for any server or application consolidation project.