By: Kyle Wassink, Blue Medora
vROps Views Blog Series
There is a lot to love about vRealize Operations Views. So much, in fact, that they deserve an entire blog series! This series will cover how to create them, how to reuse them, why they are valuable, and much more.
Increase ROI with Standalone Views
All Views can be generated “standalone” by navigating to a resources Details > Views page. Standalone Views increase ROI in two ways. First, they let you package up multiple key performance metrics into one View, removing the repetitive task of digging through metric menus. Second, Views are available for both parent and children resources, enabling you to quickly get key information for resources up and down the stack.
An example of packaging up multiple metrics can be seen in the VMware Host View titled “Host Status Summary”. To generate this view, navigate to a VMware Host resource and open the Details > Views page. Find and select the “Host Status Summary” View and you’ll see the connection state, maintenance state, version number, and more. Without a View, you would have to dig through the metric menus to find this valuable information.
Figure 1: The Details > View page of a VMware Host. Clicking on a View in the list (red) will show the View (orange).
You may have noticed the “NetApp Throughput by Volume” View listed in the previous screenshot. This is a great example of the second way Standalone Views increase ROI. VMware Hosts can be connected to datastores, which can run on NetApp Volumes. With the Blue Medora Plugin for NetApp, this relationship is identified by vROps, so NetApp Volume Views are displayed even though we are on a VMware Host resource.
Clicking on “related” Views will automatically filter to only display resources of that type that are also related to your selected resource. You can see below what this looks like, where three related NetApp Volumes are displayed in the View.
Figure 2: The NetApp Throughput by Volume View automatically filters to only display Volumes the VMware Host is related to.
Increase ROI with Views in Reports
Views are the building blocks for reports, which increase your vROps ROI by combining vital configuration and performance information across your stack in a simple and reusable package. Reports execution and delivery can also be automated, saving you even more time!
Figure 3: Creating a report containing both the Host and NetApp Views.
Building on our previous example, let’s say that right now you look at the VMware Host Status Summary and NetApp Throughput by Volume every week. Simply combine these two Views into one report and set it to be executed and delivered to your inbox weekly. You could also automate that IT health report you send your VP every month or the performance report you send to your manager every week. The possibilities are endless!
Increase ROI with Views in Dashboards
Views can be added to dashboards via the View widget. This allows you to define your resource KPI’s in one place (the View) then reuse it elsewhere (reports and dashboards).
Figure 4: The View widget lets you display Views in your dashboards.
Consider this scenario: You are responsible for a mission critical host, VM, and storage stack. You’ve defined KPI metrics Views for each of these three layers and included them in multiple reports and dashboards. After reviewing one of the dashboards with a colleague, some recommendations are made about adding a few key metrics at each layer.
Your stellar use of Views makes this change incredibly easy. Instead of digging through your dashboards and updating numerous widgets, you only have to make a change in your three views. Once completed, all dashboards using your Views will display the additional metrics without further configuration. Additionally, any reports using your Views will include the newly identified KPI metrics.
Next Up: Creating a View from Scratch
With so much opportunity to maximize the value of your vROps investment by setting up a few Views, what are you waiting for? Get started with our next post “Creating a View from Scratch.”
