Preventative Maintenance: Getting Proactive with Skyline

The old adage is true: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And in the world of IT (Information Technology), we practice this in the form of Planned Downtime, that scheduled period when critical assets important to production get shut down for maintenance.

And many of us rely on VMware Skyline and its native proactive reporting features, such as Upgrade Recommendations, Interoperability Checks, and Insights Reports, to make sure that our Planned Downtime goes as efficiently as possible.

Preventative Maintenance: Adhoc vs. Planned Downtime

But did you know that all Preventative Maintenance does not require Planned Downtime? Of course you do! We do it all the time. Think about our world outside of IT where we do a lot of Preventative Maintenance on an adhoc basis.

I’m going to use our vehicles as an example.

In all those examples, there are indicators, most likely a gauge (or a lot of fingerprints), that let us know when we need to act.

Stepping back into the world of IT, a lot of emphasis is justifiably placed on Planned Downtime. It is critical to ensure that production equipment is limited or shut down to allow for proper maintenance, repairs, upgrades, or testing before rebooting.

And, as I have indicated, Skyline’s Upgrade Recommendations and Insights Report capabilities are ideal for this.

But Skyline also monitors for nearly 200 (and counting) preventative maintenance issues (i.e., indicators), related to configuration errors, that can be done on an adhoc basis, where critical assets do not need to be shut down and rebooted.

These recommendations range in severity and address a variety of environmental risks, including impacts to:

Performance
Guest OS (Operating System) Stability
BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery)

Here are just a handful of Skyline Recommendations that you can act on, on an adhoc basis.

More than 3 Snapshots

While a maximum of 32 snapshots are supported in a chain, using only 2 to 3 snapshots helps ensure better performance.

Snapshots older than 7 Days

The snapshot file size continues to grow when it is retained for a longer period. This can cause the snapshot storage location to run out of space and impact the system performance.

vCenter Server Appliance disk space is full

When your vCenter Server Appliance disk space nears capacity, it impacts its performance and makes it susceptible to crashing and file corruption.

Self-Service Reports For VMware Success 360 Users

To see other Skyline Recommendations that don’t require a reboot in your environment, you can take advantage of Self-Service Reports For VMware Success 360 Users. This feature is available to VMware Success 360 or Premier Services customers. With it, you can create reports at any given time and share them with your organization.

Self-Service Reports for Success 360 and its Resolution Type filter give you the ability to see findings, specific to your environment, that do not require a reboot.

Conclusion

Planned Downtime will always be a critical component of network maintenance, as you work to keep the environments that you manage stable, secure, and resilient. You can use Skyline and its Upgrade Recommendations and Insights Reports features to help inform your remediation plans and ensure that everything goes smoothly.

But do not forget that Skyline can help with less rigorous maintenance that does not require downtime and system rebooting as well. Use Skyline to look for “quick wins” and easy wins as you prepare for the more rigorous updates that are part of your Planned Downtime periods.