What is Matilda Optimize #
Matilda Optimize is a powerful cloud optimization tool designed to help companies optimize and improve their cloud operations. It provides a deep analysis of application profiles, cloud asset recommendations, and application modernization recommendations, all while aligning with the well-architected frameworks of major cloud providers.
The Power of Matilda Optimize in Cloud Operations #
With Matilda Optimize, users can achieve optimal performance and cost savings while maintaining service level agreements (SLAs) for their applications. Matilda Optimize provides users with a range of capabilities to address their cloud operational challenges.
Visibility: Matilda Optimize offers a simplified single pane of view for all accounts across major cloud providers. This enables users to gain a deeper understanding of their applications’ performance, service dependencies, and endpoints.
Optimization: Matilda Optimize’s major focus areas include savings, security, license optimization, performance, and best practices. It offers policies for identifying unused or underutilized assets based on their usage metrics and provides recommendations for right-sizing compute databases. Additionally, it considers license optimization at the operating system and database levels and provides security policies that scan for critical settings to keep the network and assets safe.
Modernization: Matilda Optimize’s modernizing feature identifies and eliminates underutilized and orphan resources and provides detailed recommendations for modernizing legacy applications to improve performance and reduce costs.
Deep Discovery: Matilda Optimize has the ability to deeply discover cloud assets, compute instances, and services. It provides critical data in determining asset criticality, utilization level, and cost impacts. Its rich policy engine provides recommendations at the asset level, including savings, security, and best practices.
Container Platform Optimization: For modern applications running on container platforms like Kubernetes, Matilda Optimize provides optimization at the infrastructure level, such as node groups and service levels in each namespace, based on pod and container usage metrics.
Overall, Matilda Optimize supports cloud migration processes and cloud operations, leading to a more efficient and effective cloud environment.
Company Onboarding & Account Creation #
Matilda Optimize supports the onboarding of users with unique privileges within different companies. Users will be granted access to different features and privileges depending on their level of access and which companies they have been attached to. Use this guide to gain an understanding of the different types of accounts. The Management section of this guide provides a detailed breakdown of the account and company features of Matilda Optimize.
For more information on your specific access, please consult your Matilda SME.
Adding New Users #
The Users page allows you to create new users and provides access to user details. To add a new user, click Users under the Management tab in the left hand menu. Then select +User at the top of the screen. A pane will appear on the right side of the screen to add user details. You will need to provide the first and last name of the user, as well as their contact info and password. Click Add to add the new user.
Once you have added a new user, you will need to attach a company. To do so, click the +Company button on the top left side of the page below user details. Then select the desired company and departments to permit that user access to those company details. Users must have companies assigned to their account in order to see corresponding company details. A user can be attached to any number of companies and departments.
Management #
The Management page supports creating and editing accounts. The Management tab holds five sections:
| Section | Function |
| Company | Add new company (client) accounts, create, manage and display all companies assigned to the user |
| Account | Manage cloud account credentials, notification plugin configurations, and general CI/CD plugins |
| Attribute | Displays the permissions that are granted by the super Admins for all the sections under Optimize, i.e., Companies, Accounts, Users, Dashboard, CMDB, Monitors, Alerts, etc. |
| Role | Monitor user authentication and tool access and authorization |
| User | Displays all the User Accounts that exist in Matilda Optimize Platform |
Company #
The Company page is used to add new company (client) accounts. This page mainly creates, manages, and displays all companies created by the user.
To create a company account, click the + Add icon in the company page as shown below.
Provide the necessary company details Name, Description and Primary Contact, after which a unique company ID is created for all future operational references. Each company will have multiple departments. Companies must have departments associated with them in order to be added.
Navigating to the Companies page
The Company page and add account button
You can add users directly to the company by selecting the department, and clicking the 3 dots button on the right side of the department (as shown below). This will open a drop down menu allowing you to edit, delete, or add users to the department.
Adding, deleting and editing company contacts/users
Accounts #
This page manages cloud account credentials, notification plugin configurations, and general CI/CD plugins.
It has multiple accounts associated with it, namely:
o Cloud Accounts
o Packer
o Notification Channels
o On-Prem Accounts
o Others (SNMP, Jenkins, Git etc.)
The Account page displays a list of configured accounts, where the necessary cloud provider can be selected and new accounts can be added.
To add a new cloud account, click the Add New button as shown below. The user needs to provide appropriate parameters to configure and save the respective account. To attach or update accounts, cloud accounts must be attached to companies for cloud discovery initiation.
The Add New button on the Account page
To add accounts, select the account type, select cloud provider, and enter additional account type information. Then provide companies and departments. Once completed, select Update to add the account.
Adding account information
Adding company information to the account
Editing Account Information
Roles #
The role page is primarily used to monitor user authentication and tool access and authorization.
This page displays all the existing roles and their restrictions (attributes). Each role can have a different set of restrictions, which will control each user’s access. These restrictions can be modified to add or remove additional permissions. Only admin level users will have access to these pages.
Navigating to the Roles page
To create a new Role, click on +Add and provide the credentials required and save it as shown below.Then enter a role name and select the role type. You may also add a new role type at this time by clicking +Role Type. Click Add to add the new role.
The Roles tab on the Management Page, highlighting the Add and Save buttons
Admin level user will be able to access attributes
Admin level user will be able to access company roles
Users #
This page displays all the User Accounts that exist in Matilda Optimize Platform.
Navigating to the Users page
To add a user, click +User and provide the required user details, including first name, last name, email and password.
The Users tab and the add user button.
A User must be attached to a company in order to access company level assets. Clicking on a user will display a list of companies. A single user can have multiple companies associated with it; therefore, it is essential to pick and tag the respective companies from the list.
To choose the companies, click the + Company button, which allows the user to select the required companies to be added or updated as shown below. This is used to add companies, departments, and roles to the user. Multiple companies, departments, and roles can be added to a single user.
Updating company information under Users
After selecting companies, it is essential for the user to assign roles (attributes and accounts) associated with it, which automatically picks up the attributes that are already configured.
To add roles, click the Add Role button and select the respective role.
Overview #
The Matilda Cloud Optimize tool is used to discover, utilize and manage the resources of various cloud providers like AWS, Azure, OCI, and GCP. Optimize mainly holds two sections under it, which are Applications and Resources. You can navigate to these sections on the right side of the Overview page.
Applications #
The Applications page displays the list of applications for the companies created under Management. To navigate to the Applications page, click Overview in the left hand menu, and select Applications.
To Upload an application, click on the upload icon as shown below.
The Applications page and the upload button
To upload an application, the user must first select the respective company, and then add the application data template and click the Submit button as shown below.
Uploading an application in Optimize
Each Application page provides a collective information with regards to their Performance, Resources and Services utilization, Application Services, Topology, and Forecast.
Performance #
The Performance tab displays the application performance over a specified time. Performance is displayed based on the following parameters:
o Throughput (count per minute)
o Average Duration (milliseconds)
o Error Rate (%)
o Throughput Vs Error Count
o Percentiles
Application performance information
Resources #
The Resources tab displays the assets that are being utilized by the applications.
The Resources tab under a listed application
Each application resource page provides an in-depth break-up of assets i.,e, Summary, Details, Topology, Metrics and Agent Metrics tabs.
Summary #
Under Resources, the Summary tab provides further details like the Asset Name, Availability Zone, Instance type etc. as shown below.
The Resource summary page and its corresponding information
Details #
Under Resources, the Details tab displays the details in terms of the network interface, security group, volume etc., as shown below. This is displayed only when the assets are linked to it.
Enable when L2 Discovery is success
The Details tab on the Resources page
Config #
The Config tab provides the details of the configuration for each resource.
The Config tab under a given resource
Metrics #
The Metrics page represents the application utilization such as network out, network in, CPU utilization, EBS read ops, and more as shown below.
The Metrics tab on the Assets page
Topology #
The Topology tab displays a tree structure representation of all the details of the Application as shown below.
The Topology tab on the Assets page
Services #
The Services tab displays all the services used for the application. Service details include a summary, details, and topology.
The Services tab under a given application
Summary #
Each service provides a summary section as shown below.
The summary of a given service
Details #
The Details tab provides lists of different data points discovered for the selected service. In the example below, three nodes (VMs) are displayed for a Kubernetes service. For the discovered service, several data points are available for viewing, including nodes, images, labels, pods, containers, namespaces, and more. These are visible on the left. For different services, the data points will vary (such as Oracle, Web Logic, etc.)
Deep discovery details displayed for the selected service
Topology #
Selecting the Topology tab will display the expandable topology of the selected service.
The expandable topology of a selected service and its attributes
Application Services #
The Application Services tab displays all the application services used for the application. This tab displays information on the different services deployed inside a particular service.
Forecast #
The Forecast tab displays the forecast of an application in terms of request count, average duration, and error count in a specified amount of time, and predicts future costs or savings by monitoring them.
Resources #
The Resources page displays all the resources that are used by the company in terms of applications, costs, assets, etc.
The top of the Resources page shows a summary of companies, assets, costs, and cloud provider total spending. You can use the drop down selection on the top right of the page to select a subset of companies and resource information. You can also further change the date range and select what resource and company information is listed on the top right corner of the list.
The image below shows the list view of company resources. In the list view, resources are listed by company, and company resource information is listed in each column. Note that you can toggle between list view and tile view on the right corner of the list.
The Resources page and list view of all company resources for a given date range
Assets Tab #
When selecting a company from the Resources page, you will be brought to the Assets tab. The Assets tab displays a set of resources in terms of their cloud providers, resource groups, and categories.
The Assets tab under company resources
Clicking on each asset will open a window with a set of tabs, including Summary, Details, Config, Topology, Metrics. The accessibility of these details will be enabled only for specific user access levels and certain resource types. For more information please contact your Matilda SME. Because these tabs are specific to each type of asset, not all tabs will be available for each asset.
Summary #
Selecting any asset will provide a summary of asset details.
Details #
The Details tab provides resource details of the host discovery. If a host discovery identifies additional services on the host, those details will be displayed in the Details tab, as shown below.
Config #
This tab details the different configurations of the given asset in the cloud. The different types of configurations are listed on the left side of the tab.
Topology #
Metrics #
Agent Metrics #
Agent Metrics are only available if an agent has been installed in the particular instance.
Agent metrics for a given instance over the selected timeline
Cost Tab #
When you select a company from the Resources page, you will see the Cost tab next to the Assets tab. The Cost tab displays the costs of the assets in specified time intervals. Here, both costs and savings are displayed as shown below. Costs of services are broken down by type of service, such as PaaS, storage, and network.
The Cost tab on the Assets page under company resources
Services #
Navigate to the Services page by clicking Services on the left hand menu. Here, you can select views of services, databases, or Kubernetes by clicking their subsequent tabs at the top of the page.
Services #
Under the Services tab, the summaries of each set of services will be listed by type for the selected date range. You can also select what information is viewed from the drop down menus at the top right side of the page.
View of services under the Services tab
Databases #
Similar to services, selecting the Databases tab will display all database resource types, and list the different database services for the selected date range.
The Databases tab on the Services page
Kubernetes #
Documentation coming soon!
Goals #
The Goals module is a vital component of Optimize. Use the Goals module to monitor applications’ resources. This module is broadly classified into the following sections:
- Rules Profile
- Notifications Profile
- Metrics Profile
- Monitors
- Anomaly Profile
- Device Template
Rules Profile #
The rules profile is mainly used for creating a set of rules for a particular resource group and attaching rule sets to monitors. The rules exist mainly to execute within monitors.
Creating a Rules Profile #
To create a Rules Profile, click on + Create Rule button as shown below.
Creating a rule on the Rules Profile
Creating a rules profile opens the page below. Here, the user first must specify the rule profile monitor type, (Infrastructure or Application). Then provide the required information, including the title, provider, service group, service type, and select necessary rule metrics.
Selecting the Monitor Type on the rules profile
Based on the Account names and services, rules can be configured for metrics.
Notifications Profile #
The Notifications Profile is used to set notifications for rule violations. The notifications provide alerts via email, Slack, or Teams.
To create a Notification Profile, click on + Notification button circled below.
Adding a notification in the Notification Profile
This page requires a set of inputs, namely the notification method and source settings.
Notification Method: provide information like Profile Name, Company and Select one of the Alert Notification Methods.
Creating a notification
Source Settings: Based on the type of alert notification selected, select configurations like the alert subject, email ID details, target integration, and body text.
Creating and configuring Teams notifications
To modify or remove the existing notifications, click the drop down icon under Action and click Edit or Delete.
Modifying and removing notifications in the Notification Profile
Metrics Profile #
The metrics profile page monitors all the resources in a predetermined environment. A predetermined environment is when the user sets the terms for a particular resource so that its usage and performance can be analyzed.
The metrics profile provides a better picture of the given amount of time and respective modules, and captures the behavior of the given resource.
To create a metrics profile, click the + Metric button as shown below.
Adding a metric in the Metric Profile
This page requires all the essential details, including Metric Name, Company, Provider, Account, Service Groups, Service Types, and Current Asset.
It is also essential to provide module details. To do so, select Modules, click on the + icon as shown below. This opens a list on the right side of the page to select from.
Adding, selecting, and saving modules
After selecting the Modules, further details like specific time intervals, the type of metrics etc.
Based on the details given, this page provides the metrics which can be saved and downloaded as shown in the above picture.
Monitors #
The Monitors page controls the monitoring of all application resources listed under Optimize.
To monitor resources, the user must first create rules, notifications and metrics profiles. Once these are created, the user can then proceed to create a monitor.
To create a monitor, click the + Monitor button as shown below.
Adding Monitors on the Monitors page with list view displayed
Tile view of the Monitors page
Clicking + Monitor opens a page requiring the user to provide required monitor information. First, it is essential to choose the monitor type in terms of infrastructure or application. Next, the user must specify the monitor name, provider, integrated account, service group, and schedule frequency along with the rules profile and notification profile that was created earlier.
Asset Type Selection #
When creating a monitor, the user must also choose an asset type. Asset types may be static or dynamic.
Static Asset Type #
The static asset type should be selected when there’s a fixed group of resources that need to be monitored. By selecting the static asset type, the following resources list is displayed to select the resources.
The Monitor page and list of static resources
Dynamic Asset Type #
The dynamic asset type should be selected when the monitored resources need to be updated dynamically based on the filter conditions. After selecting the dynamic asset type, the filter conditions will be displayed as shown below.
The Monitor page and dynamic asset filter rules
Anomaly Profile #
The Anomaly Profile focuses solely on fetching anomalies based on the most recent data history. This profile page displays a list of anomalies created in detail. Anomalies belong to one of two types, Infrastructure Anomalies and Application Anomalies.
Application anomalies are automated to run in a constant scheduled manner. They are not created manually, as opposed to infrastructure anomalies.
To create an infrastructure anomaly, click the + Create Anomaly button as shown below. Clicking this button opens a page to provide the required details, including the profile name, company, monitors, services, and metrics that define the infrastructure utilization details.
Creating an anomaly in the Anomaly Profile
There are two ML jobs under the anomaly creation page, Anomaly Configuration and Forecast Utilization. The user can select either one or both of them.
Under Anomaly Configuration, the user must choose either the basic algorithm or the robust algorithm.
Both the basic and robust algorithms need similar information, including the alert window, the warning threshold, and the warning recovery threshold. The only difference is the deviation input and context menu.
Anomaly Configuration (Create Anomaly) #
The context menu requires the inputs ‘above’ or ‘below’ for the alert thresholds. These inputs set the thresholds for the Contextual Window, Alert Recovery Window, and Direction.
The Anomaly page and the thresholds for Anomaly Configuration and Forecast Utilization
Forecast Utilization: Based on the specific duration of the past data, this provides a forecast regarding the Utilization of data for the future.
The User must provide details like Training Window in terms of Weekly or Monthly in the Predict every and Predict Future dropdowns, as shown in the image above.
Device Templates #
The Device Templates page is used to create templates for the monitoring and utilization of SNMP devices.
To create a template, click the + Device Template button as shown below.
The Device Templates page and the add device template button
The user must provide template info and MIB browser details. In the Template Info pane, the user must enter the template name, device type, vendor and category, and click on Next in the bottom right of the pane, which opens the MIB Browser page as shown below.
The Device Template pane
On the MIB Browser page, the user must select a file under Browse a File. This opens a tree structure of files for the user to select the document. Doing so fetches the respective OID details, name, MIB name, and description. To add the OID details, click the Add button.
The user can add a list of OID details to create a device template. To save the list and complete the process, click the Save button on the bottom right corner of the page.
The Device Template page and OID Details
Linking Device Templates to Assets #
Once the device templates are created, the user can link the device templates to assets.
Next on the Assets page under Optimize, the user must select a particular asset from the list of assets. To attach the template, click on the icon under Actions shown below and to select Attach Device Template.
The Policy Verification page and the process of linking device templates to assets under the Actions dropdown
Next, the user must select the respective information in drop downs Choose Device Template and Integrations and click on Submit as shown below.
Submit device template
Maintenance #
The Maintenance section (navigate on the left hand menu) contains scheduling features for Matilda Optimize.
Schedulers #
This module holds only one section i.,e Schedulers.
The schedulers page displays a list of scheduler jobs that are created to monitor the performance in a specified amount of time and at different intervals. This page also displays all the scheduler jobs that are currently active, completed, or paused.
To create a Scheduler, click on + Scheduler as shown below.
The Schedulers page and the add scheduler button
Provide the required details to create a Scheduler, including name, job type, company, cloud provider, and cloud account with a schedule time and frequency. Click the Save button to save the scheduler.
The + Scheduler page and required information for adding a scheduler
Job details under scheduled job
Cost Explorer #
The main purpose of this page is to give a cost analysis for the Cloud providers and recognize the Anomalies for the resource IDs, Cost Explorer has three parts i.e.,
Cloud Cost #
The Cloud Costs section displays the costs of assets for a specific time period along with a forecast based on the analysis. In the Cost Explorer, the user must select the respective company along with the appropriate cloud provider, account, and category to get the cost trend in terms of graphical representation and the split-up table of utilization.
In the Cost Explorer, a graph displays the overall cost of resources along with the forecast for the near future. The Split-Up table provides individual utilization information like the compute, network, storage, and enables the selection the credit option, etc., as shown in the picture below.
The Cost Explorer page, filters selection
The Cloud Cost forecast data are displayed either daily, weekly, or monthly.
Each utilization category has a page that displays a bar chart that further provides data for cost in terms of EC2 instances, EC2, tax, support (developer), and cloud watch, as shown in the picture below.
The cloud cost forecast and cost breakdown bar chart
Cost Anomaly #
This page displays the abnormal cost behaviors, or anomalies, of a particular resource group. The anomalies can be further filtered by selecting various resource IDs. It is important to select the appropriate cloud provider, account, resource group, and resource ID.
The graph on the Cost Anomaly tab displays the cost anomaly chart with the date / time, cost, value, and severity of the data. The Graphical data is also available in a tabular form with details like the criticality, company name, service impacted, and more.
The Cost Anomaly tab in the Cost Explorer
Cost by Tag #
The Cost By Tag tab displays the cost chart for resources based on the respective regions and tags.
It is essential to select the company, cloud provider, accounts, and regions along with the tags like environment, application, and project in a timely manner. This also provides the data information like the company ID, product code, product family, resource ID, region, and total cost.
The Cost By Tag page, including its filters
Each utilization category has a page that displays a bar chart that further provides data for cost in terms of EC2 instances, EC2, tax, support (developer), and cloud watch, as shown in the picture below.
The cloud tag forecast and cost breakdown bar chart
Optimization #
The primary focus of this Module is to enhance performance, save costs and optimize the process. Optimization holds two pages, Policies and Recommendations.
Policies #
The Policies page displays a list of predefined policies that are fetched from the master database for each respective account. The policies can be updated either when an account is created in the application or when new clients are onboarded.
It is essential to first provide the appropriate details, including the company name, cloud provider and account in order to fetch the respective policies as shown below.
The Policies page and the company name, cloud provider, and account listed on the top right
According to the given details, the page displays the total number of Policies in terms of Service Groups, Categories, Policy Types, and Priority.
- Service groups: Compute / Storage / Database
- Categories: as Savings / Security / Best practice
- Policy types: as Meta / Metrics type
- Priority: as High / Medium / Low.
Every Policy has certain rules defined for itself in terms of metric, comparator, aggregation, unit, and value. These details are displayed by clicking the corresponding icon under Action and selecting Details, as shown below.
Selecting the policy details window
The policy details window and corresponding information
Recommendations #
Once the Policies are defined, a set of recommendations are applied for the respective policies. The Recommendations page displays the list of recommendations associated with the assets, policy code, service, and the cloud provider. Each recommendation page holds information like the status, assets name, asset ID, type, policy description, recommendation, region, etc., as shown below.
Each recommendation listed includes an icon to identify the priority and policy type associated with it.
The Recommendations page and list of recommendations
The Recommendations window and its corresponding information
Every Recommendation is derived from the respective policy as an outcome. Policy descriptions and recommendations always have a direct relation, as shown in the picture above.
There are certain policy jobs that are run on a timely basis at a specified interval i.e., daily, weekly, or monthly to monitor their behavior/utilization of machines. Based on the data and the existing configuration, appropriate recommendations and forecast utilizations are provided.
Recommendations and forecasts are provided for the virtual machines in terms of vCPU, vMEM, virtual memory, network throughput, and disk throughput utilization.
The page below provides a clear understanding of the utilizations, uptime, availability, etc., but mainly provides the cost estimation per month to be saved upon, as shown in the picture below.
Details pertaining to a specific recommendation
Graphical information pertaining to a specific recommendation to resize an EC2 instance
Incidents #
The Incidents module holds two main sections under it, Alerts and Anomalies.
Alerts #
The Alerts page displays the list of alerts for the assets that violate the defined rules specified in the rules profile. Alerts are generated once the monitor is created. Each alert page provides a summary like the monitor type (Infrastructure or Application), alert description, alert name, date, status, and severity.
Different alert sources are also integrated and displayed like New Relic, Data Dog, Dynatrace, etc., along with Matilda Alerts.
Each alert page provides details like the health of the alert, applications impacted, criticality, and related asset information, as shown below.
The Alerts page and list of alerts for the given range
An example alert page and its summary
Anomalies #
The Anomalies page displays all the anomalies in terms of infrastructure, application, and service, along with the criticality. Anomalies are always connected to Schedulers.
Since the anomaly jobs are run in a timely manner, it is essential to select the appropriate date. This is always set to provide the last seven days of data.
The Anomalies page and schedule
These anomalies are saved and displayed according to the monitor type, metrics, time, the services impacted, and a description of the anomalies.
Each Anomaly page provides detailed information like the resources impacted, Company ID, Cloud provider, etc., along with an Anomaly timeline graph, as shown below.
The Anomaly Details page and its included information
The Anomaly Details page, continued, and the Anomaly timeline graph
Report Builder #
The Report Builder provides summaries of modules, which can be fetched from the database. Sections under this section include Generated Reports, Reports, and Dashboards.
Generated Reports #
This page provides a list of reports that are generated from schedulers. The user can download these reports for future reference.
The Generated Reports page in the Report Builder module
Reports #
Multiple Connections and Blocks are combined to create a Report Template. To create a new report template, click on the + Add Report button and provide the required details.These Report Templates will be used to generate the Reports through schedulers.
Adding reports in the Report Builder
Dashboard #
Similar to Reports, Dashboards can be created using Blocks. There can be multiple Dashboards for each client. To create a dashboard, click on the + Add Dashboard button and provide the required details as shown below.
Adding a Dashboard in the Report Builder
Support #
Matilda Cloud support is offered by email during working hours Monday-Friday.
Please contact info@matildacloud.com for assistance.