With the version 5.8 release of VMware vCenter Hyperic in the VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite, we are introducing the first wave of out-of-the-box Dashboards – built by Application Subject Matter Experts, for Application Owners. The dashboards, installed with the vCenter Operations Managment Pack for Hyperic are built to provide instant value to App Owners. All you need to do in vCenter Operations Manager is install the management pack, connect to Hyperic, and provide the App Owner access to the Dashboards. Of course the dashboards can be extended, and customized, or used as a template or starting point for a more custom monitoring experience.
As I said, this is the first wave, and there are more to come. The dashboards are available on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX). With this Management Pack there are two applications being covered, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange. The dashboards for both these applications come together and are installed together. They require vCenter Hyperic 5.8 to monitor and send metrics to vCenter Operations Manager. The management pack also installs the new Hyperic adapter for vCenter Operations. Once the pak file has been uploaded and added to the vCenter Operations instance, you can configure an instance of the vCenter Hyperic adapter to pull MS SQL and/or Exchange metrics into vCenter Operations.
Go to Environment > Configuration > Adapter Instances > ‘Click”
Click “Add New Adapter Instance”
Collector: Choose your Collector from the Dropdown
Adapter Kind: Pick the Hyperic Adapter from the Dropdown
Hyperic Instance Name: This is Meta-Data, can be any name, i.e. “Production Hyperic-01”
Hyperic Server URL: This is the URL used to connect to the Hyperic Portal
vCenter Operations Manager URL: FQDN or IP of the vCenter Operations Server you are configuring. This will be passed to Hyperic, to tell it where to send metrics.
Certificate Verification: True or False, should vCenter Operations and Hyperic verify the certificates used while communicating over SSL.
Hostname Verification: True or False, should vCenter Operations and Hyperic verify hostnames given during setup.
Support Audiscovery: True or False, true will set the adapter to periodically poll Hyperic for new resources, and auto discover them. False will set the adapter wait for the admin to add resources from Hyperic into vCenter Operations
White List Filter Reg, Black List Filter Regex: Regular expression that filters Resources found in by adapter in Hyperic. “White List” will filter in all that match, “Black List” will filter in all that do not match.
Credential: Choose existing or Add new Hyperic Credentials
Adapter Kind: Pick the Hyperic Adapter from Dropdown
Credential Kind: Choose Hyperic Credentials from Dropdown
Instance Name: Meta-Data can be anything i.e. “Production Hyperic Credentials”
Hyperic User Name: UserID in Hyperic that has Admin privileges.
Hyperic Password: Password for previous UserID in Hyperic
vCenter Operations Manager User Name: UserID in vCenter Operations with Admin privileges, this is the ID that Hyperic will use top post new metrics and add resources.
vCenter Operations Manager Password: Password for previous UserID in vCenter Operations
Test the connection and click “OK”
Now that you have the adapter installed, give it a few hours to collect some metrics from MS SQL or Exchange. Then open the dashboards and have a look.
Dashboards > HQ.
You will see MS SQL, Exchange and 3 Hyper-V Dashboards, the Hyper-V Dashboards will be covered in another post.
Click MS SQL or Exchange and you get a Dashboard built for the owners of those solutions. Each Dashboard has a Healthtree, Sparklines, Alerts and what vCenter Operations calls the Skittles view. Theses Widgets understand the structure and relationships of the Solutions they are presenting. Exchange Sites, Client Access and Hub Transport Layers, MS SQL Clusters, Report, and Analysis all contribute to the readily available information about the Health and performance of the Solution.
The vCenter Operations Management Pack for Hyperic gives instant, easy, out-of-the-box value to both VI Admins and Business Critical Application owners. If you do not already have a VMware Solution Exchange account, sign up for one today. Join the growing community of customers and partners, and have a look at what VMware is offering today!
Hope you found today’s #TechTip useful. For a full list of all blog posts in the vCenter Operations Management Tech Tips series, search for posts with the tag ‘tech tips‘, or just visit http://blogs.vmware.com/management/tag/tech-tips.
Thank you.
