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Utilization Collection with On-Prem Collectors

 Overview

Block 64’s on-prem collectors do more than inventory, where the platform supports it, they also sample resource utilization: CPU and memory usage over time, and disk activity for supported sources. This is the data behind the sizing figures in the Cloud Sizing Compute report, such as 95th CPU % and 95th RAM %, and it is what allows a right-sizing recommendation for physical and virtual machines alike.

Three collection tools gather this data:

Tool

Runs as

Typical use

Discovery Appliance (BlockBox)

Hardened virtual appliance, agentless scanning

Whole datacenters / subnets without installing anything

Discovery Application

Application installed on a Windows server

Environments where a dedicated appliance isn’t practical

Discovery Agent (remote devices)

Lightweight agent on endpoints

Machines outside scan reach, remote workers, branch offices

If you already run any of these for inventory, utilization collection is part of the same deployment, there is nothing extra to install.


Discovery Appliance (BlockBox)

The appliance collects utilization agentlessly over your network. For Windows devices it uses WMI to poll CPU, RAM usage, and disk IOPS; support for other platforms varies, with IBM AIX reporting limited metrics. The BlockBox Technical Pre-Work article lists the ports and credentials this requires, WMI/RPC/SMB access with appropriate permissions is what powers the performance counters.


Discovery Application

The Discovery Application collects utilization from the devices it scans, reporting the same CPU and memory percentiles to Insights. It is installed on a Windows server inside the environment and is a good fit where deploying an appliance is not practical.  


Discovery Agent (Remote Devices)

Discovery Agents run directly on endpoints and report utilization from machines that appliance, or application-based scanning can’t reach, remote and home offices, for example. In Insights, devices collected this way show Agent as their collector type.


Seeing the results

Open Reports > Cloud Sizing > Compute in Insights. Devices with collected utilization show 95th CPU % and 95th RAM % figures, and the Collector column shows which tool gathered the data.

Utilization figures appear once a collector has delivered enough samples, newly discovered devices show a dash (-) until a picture builds up, and a dash never means zero usage. If all devices collected by a tool show dashes, confirm that tool is connected and reporting: the report shows a banner when it detects devices whose utilization has never been captured.


Data Handling

Utilization samples are aggregated into percentile figures by the platform; the methodology behind weekly and monthly roll-ups is described in Time Series Data Roll-ups. Collectors gather performance counters only, no file contents, emails, or application data are inspected. 


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