In case you missed my last post, I covered 360 Degree Troubleshooting with vRealize Operations. In this post, I’ll answer a simple question, “What is vRealize Network Insight”? The simple answer to that question is…
vRealize Network Insight (or vRNI) is VMware’s management and monitoring tool for the software-defined network (SDN)
But there’s more that you need to know…
vRealize Network Insight – Background
What today is vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) started as Arkin Net. With VMware’s acquisition of Arkin, in June of 2016, Arkin Net became vRealize Network Insight.
VMware made this acquisition because, as organizations are moving to the software-defined data center (SDDC) and with VMware’s software-defined networking (SDN) – VMware NSX – and those organizations need management and monitoring. Arkin was purpose-built for VMware NSX environments and, as such, is the ideal solution for management and monitoring any SDN using NSX.
vRealize Network Insight – Overview
If you are using, or plan to use VMware’s NSX, then you’ll want vRealize Network Insight. That’s because vRNI provides you with…
- Pre-deployment insight into data center traffic flows via a pre-assessment tool to enable faster NSX deployments with micro-segmentation planning.
- Post-deployment monitoring of the software-defined network, prevents problems before they happen, and lowers the time to resolution should trouble occur. For example, troubleshooting is far easier because vRNI provides plain English search and contextual analytics across virtual and physical layers.
- Optimization of network performance and availability with visibility and analytics across virtual and physical networks.
- Planning and recommendations for implementing micro-segmentation security, plus operational views to quickly and confidently manage and scale VMware NSX deployment.
Learning vRealize Network Insight
I’d be willing to guess that many of you reading this are like me and are still trying to wrap your head around exactly how VMware NSX works and what life would be like to administer a software-defined data center where NSX is deployed. That’s okay. This is still a good time to learn about vRealize Network Insight because vRNI helps you to visualize traffic flows, visualize micro-segmentation, and to troubleshoot NSX when the software-defined network isn’t working, as expected. Plus vRNI isn’t only compatible with NSX, it’s compatible with the vSphere Distributed Switch and a lengthy list of physical network switches.
Personally, I think that the best way to learn anything is to see it in action and to try it for yourself. With that in mind, I’ve compiled some resources for you (because I’ve been trying to learn more about vRealize Network Insight too). So if you want to learn more, here are some great resources to make it easy:
- VMware NSX Feature Walkthough videos (which I’ll embed below)
- Blog post – First Look: vRealize Network Insight
- HOL-1729-SDC-1 – Introduction to vRealize Network Insight
- Webinar Series on Network Virtualization: Getting More out of NSX – numerous classes with SDN experts including sessions on vRealize
vRealize Network Insight Videos
