1. OVERVIEW › 1.2 Capacity Planning Database

1.2 Capacity Planning Database

The CA MICS Capacity Planner provides facilities to maintain
capacity planning information in databases that can be either
shared (among all authorized users) or private (under your
control). These SAS databases can be made up of four
different types of files: Sample Application files, Resource
Element files, Meta files, and Business Element files.

o  Sample Application Files are CA-defined views of data in
   the CA MICS database that can be used to do capacity
   planning in a number of different computing environments
   (for a complete discussion, see Chapter 2 of this guide).
   Sample Applications are designed to be a 'fast-path'
   approach to building a capacity planning database and do
   not require you to enter many parameters to start
   collecting CA MICS information in your capacity planning
   database.

o  Resource element files are user-defined files that extract
   information from the CA MICS database and store it in your
   capacity planning database. In contrast to the Sample
   Applications, resource element files let you choose the
   CA MICS files from which to extract data, decide the level
   to which the data is summarized, and create new data
   elements.  The MICF facilities enable you to select files
   and data elements and provide a regular interface for you
   to use. Section 3.3 provides a full discussion on Resource
   Element files.

o  Meta files are user-defined files, similar to Resource
   Element files, however rather than using CA MICS files as
   input, Meta files use data that reside in either the
   Private (or Shared) Capacity Planner database.  Meta files
   can summarize this data according to your specifications.
   Using Meta files, you can summarize the data from one
   Sample application in different ways to provide multiple
   views of the same information (for example, by department,
   by division, by company, and by the organization).  See
   Section 3.4 for a full discussion of Meta files and their
   uses.

o  Business Element files are user-defined and contain
   information from data sources outside the CA MICS
   architecture. Business Element files are used to store
   business elements such as last year's total orders, or
   number of units sold, or future projected sales into the
   CA MICS Capacity Planner so you can perform Business
   Element Forecasting (BEF).  Business Element Forecasting
   (also know as Natural Forecasting Units (NFU) or Natural
   Business Unit (NBU) Forecasting) is a workload forecasting
   technique that uses business metrics (for example, Units
   Sold, Claims Processed) to forecast future computing
   resource needs. Business Element files are discussed in
   Section 3.5 of this guide.

The CA MICS Capacity Planner uses the information contained
in the Capacity Planner database as input to the workload
forecasting facilities.  You can use this to predict future
consumption levels. The forecasting facilities of the CA MICS
Capacity Planner can store your forecasts in the Capacity
Planner database so you can use them in Presentation Graphics
or as input to the presentation facilities of MICF.

Finally, with the MICF Production Reporting facility, you can
automatically update the shared Capacity Planning database as
the prerequisite CA MICS operational job completes.