Power Schedule Recommendations

Power schedule groups help to ensure that VMs are powered on when needed and powered off when not needed, to minimize cost without hindering productivity. Commander issues power schedule recommendations for VMs.

By default, power schedule recommendations are issued for VMs that:

• Don't belong to a power schedule group.
• Are public cloud instances.
• Have any custom attribute whose value is dev, qa, sandbox, staging, or test.
• have an uninterrupted uptime greater than 24 hours.

• We recommend importing AWS tags, GCP labels, and Azure tags as custom attributes so that Commander can use these values as a basis for power schedule recommendations.
• Power schedule recommendations are just one feature of Commander cloud expense management. See Cloud Expense Management to learn about other features that work together to reduce your cloud costs.

Required Service Portal permissions

The Service Portal permission Show Recommendations: Cost Decrease allows users to view power schedule recommendations. (This permission is also used for rightsizing recommendations.)

The Service Portal permission Modify Power Schedule Groups allows users to apply power schedule recommendations.

See Customize Service Portal Roles for Users to learn how to configure permissions.

Customize power schedule recommendation rules

1. On the Power Schedule tab, click Configure Recommendations.
2. In the Power Schedule Recommendation Settings wizard, configure settings for public cloud instances:
• Enable power schedule recommendations: By default, power schedule recommendations for public cloud instances are enabled. Clear this setting if you don't want to see power schedule recommendations for public cloud instances.
• Recommend power schedules when uninterrupted uptime > x hours: By default, recommendations are issued for public cloud instances that have been powered on for more than 24 hours. Optionally, enter a whole number to edit this field.
• Applies to services with the following custom attribute values: By default, recommendations are issued for instances with any custom attribute with a value of dev, qa, sandbox, staging, or test (non-case-sensitive). If you want to pick a specific custom attribute, select it from the drop-down list. You can also change the list of custom attribute values that will trigger a recommendation by editing the comma-separated list.

  We recommend importing AWS tags, GCP labels, and Azure tags as custom attributes so that Commander can use these values as a basis for power schedule recommendations.

3. Click Next to configure the same settings for private cloud VMs.
4. Click Next to review your changes, and click Finish to save your changes.

   If you enabled recommendations, you must wait for the number of hours you specified in the wizard before seeing recommendations.

View power schedule recommendations

• To view all power schedule recommendations go to Tools > Recommendations.

  All active recommendations in the system are displayed.

  Because Commander also generates rightsizing recommendations, you may see a large number of recommendations. You can filter the list by typing in the text field. For example, to view only power schedule recommendations, type "power".

To view power schedule recommendations for a single VM:

1. On the Recommendations page, double-click a VM to view its Summary page.

   If there are active recommendations (either rightsizing or power schedule), a pop-up box is displayed.

2. Click the pop-up to view recommendation details.

Apply power schedule recommendations

1. When viewing a power schedule recommendation, click Apply.
2. In the Set Power Schedule Group dialog, select a power schedule group and click OK.

   The recommendation is closed and no longer displays on the VM Summary tab and the Recommendations page.

Disable power schedule recommendations for VMs

To disable power schedule recommendations for a specific VM, do at least one of the following:

• Add the VM to a power schedule group.
• Ensure that none of the VM's custom attribute values match any of the custom attribute values that trigger a recommendation.

To disable power schedule recommendations for all VMs, all public cloud instances, or all private cloud VMs:

1. Go to Configuration > Groups > Power Schedule.
2. Click Configure Recommendations.
3. In the Power Schedule Recommendation Settings wizard, clear the setting Enable power schedule recommendations on the Public Cloud Instances page, the Private Cloud VMs page, or both pages, as required.
4. Click Next to complete the wizard.
5. Click Finish to save your changes.