- Introduction
- 1: Agree on a Common Definition of Capacity Planning
- 2: Select a Capacity Planning Process Owner
- 3: Identify Key Resources To Be Measured
- 4: Measure the Current Utilizations of the Resources
- 5: Compare Current Utilizations to Maximum Capacities
- 6: Collect Meaningful Workload Forecasts from Representative Users
- 7: Transform Forecasts into Resource Requirements
- 8: Map Requirements Onto Existing Utilizations
- 9: Predict When the Shop Will Be Out of Capacity
- 10: Update Forecasts and Utilizations
- Harris Kern's Enterprise Computing Institute
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5: Compare Current Utilizations to Maximum Capacities
The intent here is to determine how much excess capacity is available for selected components. The utilization or performance of each measured component should be compared to the maximum usable capacity. Note that the maximum usable is almost always less than the maximum possible. The maximum usable server capacity, for example, is usually only 80–90%. Similar limitations apply for network bandwidth and cache storage hit ratios. By extrapolating the utilization trending reports and comparing them to the maximum usable capacity, the process owner should be able to estimate at what point in time a given resource is likely to exhaust its excess capacity. These comparisons should be updated at least monthly—if possible, weekly. As utilizations change, the point in time at which existing capacity will be exceeded should be adjusted similarly.