New HCI Assessment powered by Live Optics
We are launching a new Assessment tool called the VMware HCI Assessment powered by the industry leading Live Optics (formerly DPACK.) Live Optics is a tool widely adopted across the industry which is used to capture workload metrics which allows customers to assess their current environments. The VMware HCI assessment will capture metrics required for sizing and designing an HCI solution and will allow you to translate data into the vSAN ReadyNode Sizer to build a custom vSAN solution.
The VMware HCI assessment works on several server environments including vSphere and physical environments. The Collector “Optical Prime” runs only on system memory, does not install, and makes no modifications to your system or the system from which it collects. Consequently, customers can run an HCI assessment for 24-48 hours with no impact on their workloads performance.
Why use assessments?
When making decisions about your IT investments, it is critical to understand how your applications are performing on your current infrastructure. This is where assessments play a key role. Assessments are run on your current environment where they capture information for capacity, compute, performance, latency, etc. By providing a comprehensive view of the environment, Assessments are crucial in understanding whether your applications will perform better on new infrastructure. Consequently, assessments are a key part of a sales cycle and are a great way to have a second conversation with customers.
How it works
The process for creating a VMware HCI assessment is very simple.
- A Customer can request a Live Optics Capture and a Partner or SE will create a project and invite them to that project
- After joining the project, install the collector and run an assessment for 4 hours – 7 days (24-48 hours is recommended.)
- Both the Customer and Partner will have a live view into the data being captured. A Customer need not wait for the entire run period to look at preliminary data. If a customer wants to run an assessment offline, Live Optics will capture data locally and will create an SIOKIT. After the assessment is complete, the Customer can then upload the SIOKIT to his project and generate a report
- Once complete, users can share a read-online version of the online report with other users. In addition, a downloadable pdf and ppt is available for the project
How to register for a VMware HCI Assessment
New users can register for an account at https://app.liveoptics.com/register/vmware. Customers can select “I am an IT pro” and Partners/SEs should select “I am a Partner or OEM” to create an account. Current users of VMware Live Optics can continue to use their existing accounts. An account will be created within 24-28 business hours of submitting the form.
To learn how to use the VMware HCI Assessment, you can refer to https://support.liveoptics.com/hc/en-us and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC12dCa8nBENLASh2Viqu8Ew
How to use it with the vSAN Sizer
The url for the vSAN ReadyNode Sizer is currently available under the tools section the VMware HCI Assessment. Currently the process to translate data is manual. To enable users to run through an assessment and complete a sizing exercise, we have put together a Cheat Sheet which shows you how to translate the data from a Live Optics Capture to the vSAN ReadyNode Sizer. This sheet is available in Partner Central and Vault (Link for Vault.)In the future, the process for running an assessment and completing a sizing exercise will be completely automated.
What about the old vSAN Assessment?
The VMware Infrastructure Planner (aka vSAN Assessment) is now in maintenance mode. The tool will not have any feature updates or bug fixes going forward. Service tickets for any new vSAN Assessments that are created and run will be supported. We will be deprecating the tool shortly. We strongly recommend using the VMware HCI assessment going forward.
We will be running a pilot program for the next few weeks and will be monitoring the feedback closely. For additional information, you can visit the VMware HCI Assessment Homepage. For any questions or queries related to the new VMware HCI Assessment, contact [email protected]. For Live Optics support tickets, contact https://support.liveoptics.com/hc/en-us.
Stay tuned for more.
