When deploying racks, rackable servers, tower servers, direct attached storage or other devices, the user needs reference parameters to calculate power consumption and electric current values for different configurations. Also, sales and IT administrators need a tool to understand detailed device information.
The main purpose of the Capacity Planner tool is to provide data maintenance, power consumption and electric current calculations, as well as summary reports, to help IT administrators manage racks and devices. The information and reports will significantly increase deployment efficiency and also help sales people conveniently introduce products to customers. The pictures in this document show page layouts and displays. The data in the pictures are only for reference and may differ from the actual data.
User Help
This tool provides an interface to configure some settings upon startup. Language settings need to be configured on the option settings page.
After a language is selected, the user interface will switch to the selected language.
There are five areas on the page: 1)Deployment area, 2)Toolbox, 3)Summary area, 4)Power area and 5)List area.
You can select a rack from the rack list and drag it to the deployment area. This operation can be also accomplished by double-clicking or right-clicking a rack and then selecting "Add" in the popup menu. A rack without any deployed devices will appear in the deployment area after the "Add" operation.
The detailed configuration and power information for the selected rack will be shown in the summary area.
You can operate on a rack in two ways: Right-click the rack in the deployment area to display an operation menu, or click the icon buttons on the upper-right of the rack.
You can perform three rack operations: Copy, Configure and Delete.
Select the Configure item in the menu or click the Configure button when a rack is selected to display the rack configuration dialog box, as shown in the following figure:
Here, you can configure the Rack Name, Max Current, Max Weight and Rack Voltage. If a server is deployed in the rack, its voltage will be the same as the rack's voltage and cannot be changed. If a server is deployed as a standalone server in the deployment area, its voltage can be changed.
You can add devices to a rack using the following procedures:
When selecting a device in a rack, the summary area will display the configuration and power summary of the selected device.
When adding a user-defined device to a rack, a pop-up dialog will be shown to prompt you to input the configuration information.
You can operate on devices in two ways:
You can perform three device operations: Copy, Configure and Delete.
Items that Influence Server Power Consumption
There are many aspects of a server that can influence the AC power consumption. When a Thinksystem server is being configured in Lenovo Capacity Planner (LCP), these points should be considered:
Hardware configuration: Not all hardware is created equal. For example, different CPU SKUs have different TDP wattages. Different memory DIMM capacities consume different amounts of power. But, even beyond the high-level choices for things like CPU SKUs, DIMM size, network card, etc, there are finer points to the hardware configuration that can influence the AC power consumption. Some examples include:
Power supplies (PSUs) have bell shaped curves where the efficiency peaks near the 50% load point and tapers off below or above 50%. In addition, a server’s DC load gets split equally among all the operational PSUs. Armed with this information, for a given hardware configuration and workload level, it’s possible to select a PSU wattage rating such that each PSU is operating near it’s peak efficiency.
For an N+N power policy, take the maximum DC power draw for the server and divide it by the number of installed PSUs. Then, pick a PSU wattage rating close to 2x that number. For example:
For an N+1 power policy, take the server’s maximum DC power and divide it by the number of PSUs. Then take the server’s maximum DC power and divide it by N. Whichever result is larger is the target for the PSU rating. For example:
For a N+0 (non-redundant) power policy, select a PSU rating close to the server’s maximum DC power divided by the number of installed PSUs. For example:
You can modify the rackable server's Server Name, CPU, Memory, Storage and other components.
About the Term Duration, you can refer to below table:
Power Level | Conditions | Description Text |
---|---|---|
Idle | long term time (but really doesn’t matter) +idle fans | All power management features are enabled in UEFI and the operating system. Server is booted to operating system and sitting idle for several minutes. |
Load Factor | long term time +nominal fan with user selected load factor (e.g. 70% default) | Typical long term power consumption under nominal conditions with no faults and user selected load factor. |
Nominal Max | long term time +nominal fan power with 100% load | Typical long term power consumption under nominal conditions with no faults and 100% load. |
Worst Case Max | short term time +max fan power with 100% load | Maximum power consumption used for power supply sizing. Typically encountered under fault and/or high temperature conditions. |
The Load Factor slider is used to configure the expected power utilization. The Power Utilization can show you the PSU’s capacity based on the different server configurations and PSU’s policies. When you configure a server on the Server Configuration Page, if a type of component cannot be supported or it cannot be deployed with other types of the component on the server, it will not be displayed in the component selection lists on the left of the page, such as CPU, Power Supply etc. If it is necessary to add the desired component, modify the configuration so that the desired component can be added.
Click the "CPU benchmark" button to display the CPU benchmark page.
About balanced memory:
Click the "Capacity checking" button to display the capacity page.
Click the "Add User Defined Component" button to display the defined component page.
If there is no rack in the deployment area, select a rackable server from the rackable server list and drag it to deployment area; or double-click a rackable server; or right-click a rackable server and select "Add" in the popup menu. The rackable server will be displayed in the deployment area immediately.
There are two ways to invoke rackable server operations: right-click the rackable server in deployment area to display the operation menu; or click the icon to the upper-right of the selected rackable server.
You can perform two rackable server operations: Configure and Delete.
After a density server or flex system is added, select a server to be added to the density server or flex system from the server list and drag it to deployment area; or double-click the server; or right-click the server and select "Add" in the popup menu. The selected server will be added to the density server or flex system.
When the density server or flex system is selected, click the "Configure" button to modify the density server's or flex system's Server Name and power settings. When you configure a server on the Server Configuration Page, if a component type cannot be supported or it cannot be deployed with other component types on the server, it will not be displayed in the component selection lists on the left of the page, such as Power Supply. If it is necessary to add the desired component, modify the configuration so that the desired component can be added.
Select the server in the density server or flex System using the right-click menu or button to the right.
Click the "New Configuration" icon in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page to create a new configuration. If there is any existing configuration in the deployment area, its information will be deleted by this operation.
When creating a new configuration, you will see the following pop-up dialog box:
There are three buttons in the pop-up dialog box: Save, Continue and Cancel.
If this tool runs in offline mode and is opened in IE, the Save button cannot be used.
You can click the "Open or Import" icon in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page. Click "Open configuration..." to view and load configuration files. When loading a file, the current configuration will not be automatically saved. If you want to save the current configuration, please refer to the instructions for saving a configuration file.
Select the configuration file you want to load from the file list, and click "OK" button to load the selected file. Select a file in the file list and click "Delete File" to delete it. This operation is not supported in offline mode using IE.
You can click the "Open or Import" icon in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page. Then, click "Import configuration...".
When loading a file, the current configuration will not be automatically saved. If you want to save the current configuration, please refer to the instructions for saving a configuration file.
You can click the "Open or Import" icon in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page. Then, click "Import CFXML...".
When loading a file, the current configuration will not be automatically saved. If you want to save the current configuration, please refer to the instructions for saving a configuration file.
You can click the "Save or Export" icon in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page. Click "Save configuration..." in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page to save the current configuration in the deployment area.
Enter the file name in the popup dialog box. A warning prompt will be displayed if the entered file name is already in use.
Enter file name, and click "OK" to save current configuration file. This operation is not supported in offline mode using IE.
You can click the "Save or Export" icon in toolbox in the top-right corner of the page. Then click "Export configuration..." button.
Click "Create Report" button in the toolbox in the top-right corner of the page to view the current configuration and print out the configuration report.
The popup dialog box displays all configuration information for the deployment area.
Devices in a rack can be shown in Magnification view.
If you move the mouse over a device (rackable server or user-defined device) in a rack and hover over it for several seconds, the magnification view will be enabled.
Move the mouse off of the device to disable magnification view.
Total Cost of Power Settings:
Field | Definition |
---|---|
System Input Power (W) | AC or DC input power. Equal to the Server DC Power Consumption (W) divided by the PSU efficiency + any miscellaneous overhead power. |
System Input Current (A) | Input current at the operating voltage selected. |
System VA Rating (VA) | Equal to the System Input Power(W) divided by the power factor (PF). |
System BTU/Hr (BTU) | Equal to System Input Power(W) multiplied by 3.412. |
Server DC Power Consumption (W) | DC power consumed by the entire solution operating at the % utilization selected. |
Power Utilization | % of the power budget consumed when the system is operating at 100% utilization. |
System Input Power - Idle (W) | Input power consumed when all solution components are in the idle state. Note, UEFI and operating system must be optimized for minimum idle power. |
System Input Power - Off (S5) (W) | Input power consumed when the entire solution is in the soft off state. |
System Input Power - 100% Stress (W) | AC or DC input power. Equal to the System DC Power - 100% Stress (W) divided by the PSU efficiency + any miscellaneous overhead power. |
System DC Power - 100% Stress (W) | DC power consumed by the entire solution operating at 100% utilization selected. |
Product Carbon Footprint (KG) | The PCF value is used to estimate the carbon emissions resulting from the server's electricity consumption over its entire lifecycle, which can be configured in the 'Total Cost of Power Settings' menu on the homepage. Additionally, the 'PCF emission factor' can be adjusted to account for geographical differences across various countries or regions. |
Power Policy, Time Duration, Fan Speed, Load Factor | Misc options that can be set when the solution is configured. These options influence the power draw. |
The most conservative power policy depends on the power policy selected on the server. The total system power may exceed the range of the current power supply.
In general, the total power available to the server is:
Notes