In order to break down self-contained resource group “silos”, and instead move to a more distributed sharing model, you need to create an effective resource plan that enables lending and borrowing. Following the steps below, you create a hybrid resource plan that promotes and protects the business objectives of various consumers yet still allows resources to be shared between them over your cluster.
You have created useful resource groups, set up a consumer tree that mirrors your business structure, and added various business services to your cluster. You now want to create resource plans for the consumers in your consumer tree. If you are a cluster administrator, you can define a distinct resource plan for a time window of significance for each consumer.
Specifically, you want to create resource plans that ensure the following:
Your top-priority consumer (QA) receives the greatest number of resources, has first claim on any unowned resources, and is first in line to borrow available resources if demand is high.
Development, Research, and Finance consumers follow QA in priority sequentially, have appropriately adjusted ownership allocations, and have lending and borrowing policies that compliment each other’s business objectives.
Research receives extra protection against failures that might occur during a critical back-up window between 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM each day.
Finance moves up in priority for the last 3 days of each month during a time of high activity.
You therefore want a resource plan that allows for sharing between these consumers, but that guarantees certain consumers have a higher priority than others in accessing these resources during known peak periods of activity.
Novice EGO administrators may implement a “silo” model for initial testing, creating resource groups that remain quite distinct and self-contained, and configuring resource plans to exclude the ability to borrow and lend resources between consumers. By maintaining such a limited model, administrators lose the advantages of EGO’s flexibility to dynamically respond to consumer and client needs and to distribute resources effectively across a cluster. To break down the silo and move to a more distributed sharing model, you must enable lending and borrowing. This can be done by altering the resource plan in a variety of ways, and ranking consumers.
Before creating a resource plan, you must first understand its components and capabilities.
Creating a resource plan can be a complex process. This process has been broken up into 7 major steps that take place in sequence, all within the Resource Plan page of the Platform Management Console.
A simple default resource plan is already in place to adapt for your own purposes. Any changes you make and apply to the resource plan in the Platform Management Console are implemented immediately. Do not apply the changes if you do not wish the changes to be immediate. Export the plan instead, and work on the copy until you are ready to import the updates and apply the changes.
The share ratio determines the minimum number of resources to distribute to a leaf consumer in cases where there is competition between siblings.
In our example, a set share ratio applies between the leaf consumers Main Testing and Subsidiary Testing (because they are sibling leaf consumers with the same parent on the QA branch), but does not apply between Main Testing and Iteration Testing (because these are leaf consumers on different levels of the QA branch and not siblings).
At this point you have created a complete resource plan for the time interval 00:00-02:00. Your top-priority consumer branch (QA) and it’s sub-consumers are set to receive the greatest number of available resources, have first claim on any unowned resources, and are first in line to borrow available resources if demand is high.
Between 02:00-03:00, a traditionally lower-priority consumer (Research) requires immediate access to more resources in case it experiences host failure during this critical time window. A new resource plan is therefore required during this time interval that favors the Research branch in terms of resource allocation and borrowing policies.
You have now created two resource plans: The first plan configures the QA consumer branch to be a top-priority consumer who qualifies to receive the greatest number of resources, has first claim on any unowned resources, and is first in line to borrow available resources if demand is high. The second plan ensures that the Research consumer branch receives extra protection against failures during a critical back-up window each day.
You must create a third resource plan for the final time interval, 03:00-24:00. Mirror the same plan that was created for the original time windows 00:00-02:00.
You must also repeat these steps for any other resource groups you have created. (Do not alter the plan for the ManagementHosts resource group.) To switch between resource groups, use the drop down list above the plan. Make sure you apply changes before switching to a different resource group.
Create a resource plan that favors the consumers in the Finance branch of your consumer tree, and ranks them with a high consumer priority. Ensure that the critical backup time window from 02:00-03:00 is preserved to protect the consumers in the Research branch.
The Platform Management Console stores only your active resource plan. You can, however, import and apply a previously created resource plan (saved in XML format).
For the last three days of each month, the consumers in your Finance branch move up in priority during a time of high activity for them. You need to import and apply and different resource plan for this time.