Like so many reports in VSI, the first three capacity reports follow a similar pattern in terms of how we present the data. Here, we are going to present three separate breakdowns of your capacity based on your allocation strategy. If you use thick provisioning, also called fat provisioning or thin provisioning. Thick provisioning is a simple allocation method that assigns a set of users, maybe a department, with a fixed amount of storage space for their use. The allocated amount is the same regardless of how much space they use. If you have 1 TB of physical space on an array, you can allocate 10 departments 100 GB of space and that’s how much they’ll have regardless of whether they actually use 1, 50, or all 100 GB of that space. You can’t over-allocate when you’re working with thick provisioning because each allocation takes a chunk of the usable storage. It’s a zero sums game. Each department is guaranteed their 100 GB, but let’s face it, most departments will only ever use a fraction of what they’re allocated.
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Did you know VSI offers Capacity Planning as a Service? This service entails having one of our storage experts work with you, using VSI, to develop and maintain your company’s capacity plan.
The first three business unit capacity reports display stacked column charts like this one:
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The sections of the columns are consistently colored on all reports using this kind of display. Over provisioned space is always drawn in orange. Snap is always red, because wasting space on snaps is bad. Unprovisioned free space is always green. Provisioned free space is always purple. The committed space is always dark blue. Used is drawn in teal.
Capacity Summary
This report gives you a summarized view of all your storage in terms of allocation. The grid will only ever have one row and the data in that row is what’s graphed in the stacked column chart at the top of the report.
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