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Opvizor – Monitoring a virtual enviroment

11 July 2012
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Reading Time: 3 minutes

Opvizor is a monitoring tool for virtual environment (actually only vSphere environment) that can be used to analyze and audit the environment in an automated way and to pro-actively solve possible infrastructure bottlenecks and problem areas, before they cause performance degradation or system downtime.

It’s not limited to the monitoring aspect, because it also provide other functions:

  • Analyze: opvizor® ‘s expert system automatically identifies VMware configuration issues within protocol files, performance data and network security.
  • Solve: With 400+ fully integrated, proven best practices, opvizor’s® expert system offers “live” advice to resolve identified and specific problems.
  • Report: opvizor’s® expert system provides administrators with detailed reporting options and documentation.

The interface is web based and is quite clean and simple with a “desktop” approach and traditional icon and monitors. Compared to VMware vCenter Operation Manager, seems a more “traditional” program, more oriented to technical people, but the strengths is that rules could be adapted and also verified.

What makes this product interesting is that it is cloud-oriented: it’s composed by two parts, one is on-premise and is a data collector, the second one, with the “engine” and the user interface is on-the-cloud. So we can consider this product one of the first SaaS monitor tool.

The architecture seems similar to the VMware Capacity Planner tool, and also the security aspects are really close. You can find more detail on them on the opvizor web site, but more are available on the product documentation (especially there is a specific doc with the detail on how and which kind of data are anatomized).

Another interesting aspects is that rules could be modified and adapter, and they are working the community to build new set of rules or simple to validate/improve existing.

Who can be interested on this kind of solution? Most monitoring tools are already simple to install (in some cases are just virtual appliances) and also to configure, but they required resources from your environment. With this solution you can demand this activities to an external service. This aspect could become more interesting when a multi-tenancy interface will be added (I think, for example, for who want to provide management and support as a service, or companies that delegated those tasks to other companies). The price is host based (so no VM limits) and for only two hosts there is also a free (and limited) version.

Interesting also some future plans like the multi-tenancy interface, the support to vCloud Director (actually it works only with vCenter Server) and the monitoring also at application level, with a future set of rules for View and specific applications.

In the next post I will detail the installation and the configuration phases.

vProducts ,

Windows Server 2012 editions

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Microsoft has recently published more information about the Windows Server 2012 editions (and also the possible pricing). More information are also available on:

Editions Overview

Edition Ideal for… High Level Feature
Comparison		 Licensing Model Pricing
Open NL (US$)
Datacenter Highly virtualized
private & hybrid
cloud environments		 Full Windows
Server functionality
with unlimited
virtual instances		 Processor + CAL* $4,809**
Standard Low density or non-
virtualized
environments		 Full Windows
Server functionality
with two virtual
instances		 Processor + CAL* $882**
Essentials Small business
environments		 Simpler interface,
pre-configured
connectivity to
cloud based services; no
virtualization rights		 Server (25 User
Account Limit)		 $425**
Foundation Economical general
purpose server		 General purpose
server functionality
with no
virtualization rights		 Server (15 User
Account Limit)		 OEM Only

*CALs are required for every user or device accessing a server directly or indirectly. See the Product Use Rights for details.
**Pricing represents Open No Level (NL) ERP. For your specific pricing, contact your Microsoft reseller.

Notes

How does it changed for virtualization? As you can see the Enterprise edition is no more available (according to the FAQ: Enterprise edition will be retired as part of the Windows Server 2012 release) so the right solutions become the Datacenter edition. This is already usual today for medium and large environment, but for some small environment the Enterprise edition was a possible choice to reduce the cost. Standard now provide 2 instance for virtualization (but are not the 4 of the Enterprise).

Another interesting point the the difference between Standard and Datacenter: according with the official FAQ, both Standard and Datacenter editions provide the same set of features; the only thing that differentiates the editions is the number of Virtual Machines (VMs). This will mean that also the standard is now able to implement a Failover Cluster? According with the FAQ the answer is yes: including high availability features like failover clustering!

Price seems higher, but note that now are all for process: also the Standard edition is licenced at processor (and not at server). But now each license covers up to two physical processors, so to determine the number of licenses needed to fully license a physical server, simply count the number of physical processors in the server, divide that number by two and that tells you the number of licenses that will be needed.

Is also possible notice that other editions are gone:

  • Web Edition: The Web Server product was designed primarily for end customers and service providers that wanted to host web sites. However, consistent feedback from these customers and partners has been that they prefer to use an edition of Windows Server that does not restrict usage to running web workloads.
  • HPC Edition: While the HPC edition is being retired, Microsoft will be delivering the HPC Pack 2012 as a free download that can be used with any Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter license. As a result, customers who want to run HPC workloads will be able to do so on any of their Windows Server 2012 licensed servers.
  • Windows Small Business: the 2011 will be the latest edition. Customer may migrate to the cloud services (like Office 365).
Microsoft ,

Manage a Dell Storage with vCenter Server

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In the previous post, I’ve described how is possible integrate the Dell storage array management with the new Microsoft System Center VMM 2012. But of course it is possible to do the same (and from longer time) also using VMware.

With VMware vSphere we could have two different approaches for the integration:

  • One is simple add the storage interface (or part of it) in the tab and/or the menu of vSphere Client by using a vCenter Server plug-in. In this case the integration could be strong or weak, but usually differ from storage and storage. Also there could be some issue if you plan to use the vSphere Web Client.
  • The second is there the storage array (or a specific provider) talk directly with vCenter using specific API: using VASA is possible know some properties of the storage LUNs, and for example integrate this data with the Storage Profile. Note that there are also API for other specific tasks (for example VAAI for storage acceleration and offload), but those are not for management and usually are integrated on storage array and host side.

continue reading…

DellTechnologies, VMware, vStorage , ,

Manage a Dell Storage with System Center VMM 2012

Reading Time: < 1 minute

As written in a previous post, with Microsoft System Center VMM 2012 is possible manage some (supported) storage array using a SMI-S provider.

In the Dell storage portfoglio, the only solution that (one month ago) had the SMS-S support was the PowerVault MD3xxx series, and althoug not mentioned by Microsoft, was possible include them in the System Center fabric (as written in specific post).

continue reading…

Microsoft, vStorage , ,

What’s happen to the virtualization ecosystem?

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In the last years, in the virtualization ecosystem, there where three big trends:

continue reading…

General none

VMware to Acquire DynamicOps

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VMware today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DynamicOps, Inc., a provider of cloud automation solutions that enable provisioning and management of IT services across heterogeneous environments – VMware-based private and public clouds, physical infrastructures, multiple hypervisors and Amazon Web Services. Terms of the acquisition were not announced. The acquisition is scheduled to close in Q3 2012 subject to customary closing conditions.

See also:

VMware

Dell is acquiring Quest Software

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Rumors were from some months ago, but today Quest announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Dell. Dell will buying Quest for $2.4 Billion.

Until now, Quest acquisitions were already a big number of players, including:

Curious that Dell list only (for example) this advantages in the acquisition:

  • The Quest One Identity and Access Management solution family adds to Dell’s very strong set of security assets with SonicWALL and Secureworks, creating a comprehensive set of security solutions to address important customer needs.
  • Quest’s Performance Monitoring solutions for applications, networks and databases address a rapidly growing need for our customers. Industry analysts have consistently ranked Quest Foglight as a leading application performance monitoring solution. Businesses of all sizes are looking to reduce their IT complexity and automate workloads for their IT departments. Customers worldwide leverage Foglight to continually monitor their IT environments, proactively identifying and remedying performance issues before they become bigger problems.
  • Quest’s Windows Server Management solutions complement Dell Services’ rapidly growing application modernization practice with recently acquired Clerity Solutions and Make Technologies.
  • Effective database management is critical to the successful operation of most organizations. Quest’s Database Management capabilities offer a strong complement to Dell’s enterprise offering. Today, millions of DBAs, developers, and analysts around the world rely on Quest’s database management tools to simplify their work.

Vizioncore and VKernel products are not included in this example list (apart Foglight), but does it mean that the could become a spin-off, that there are different integration plans or simple that they are considered, but not mentioned.

Now the big challenge will also be to integrate and normalize the 228 separate software products with different languages, frameworks, infrastructure, … This will require a lot of time and also some choices: for example vRanger and AppAssure are two different backup product, one for virtual enviroment and agentless, the second system and image oriented… they could become a single product? Probably not, because are too different, but could be integrated (for example vRanger could become a “virtual agent” for AppAssure) or use common set of tools and products (for example the DR4000 appliance).

For the official announces see:

DellTechnologies
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