I must admit I have been quite keen to get a look at vROps 6.1 so I was quick to upgrade my lab from 6.0 to 6.1 (with not problems I might add) and have a good look at the new bits and pieces.
The bits I will cover briefly in this post are..
- Upgrading from 6.0
- EPO functionality
- Dashboards
- Automated actions (ON?)
Upgrading from 6.0
Ensure you upgrade the OS of the appliance first (if you have one) – vRealize Operations Manager – Virtual Appliance Operating System upgrade (vRealize_Operations_Manager-VA-OS-6.1.0.3038037.pak )
Then perform the vROps upgrade..
This was successful but the staging process took a while (at least 10-15 minutes for me)
Once the staging was complete it was a matter of clicking next and agreeing to the EULA and the upgrade process would begin. (note the warning regarding the restart of the cluster)
The upgrade process took roughly 30 minutes or so and I have a 2 node HA cluster.
Once the upgrade was completed and validated the first thing I wanted to check out was the inclusion of Hyperic functionality and while its not like for like just yet, its a big step forward and not too soon, Hyperic is really starting to look jaded and dated.
EP Ops Adapter
A few things to note for the agent installation.
The new EPO agent cannot run alongside a hyperic agent on any given OS, I installed the agent onto a windows server which had an existing Hyperic agent and while it installs “successfully” it conflicts with the hyperic agent (even if you disable the hyperic agent). So if you are going to run some tests bear this in mind. I found it worked perfectly if you removed the Hyperic agent first of all then installed the EPO agent (no reboot required)
You will need the SSL certificate thumb print for your vROps instance, this can be obtained from the http://vrops-url/admin and clicking golden coin icon on the top right of the UI.
Once it has been installed you can validate it is up and running by checking in the services and the log files if you so wish.
Quickly navigating to “All Objects” in “Environment” you can expand the new “EP Ops Adapter” which for any of you you familiar with Hyperic does not include as much as a Hyperic adapter but its still a good start imo.
You can select each server/VM that has an agent installed and get more information as per the example below.
I was lucky enough to have a late preview 6.1 before it went GA and one of the bits I really liked was a new Widget for dashboards
Capacity Utilization Dashboards
I will allow the screenshot to speak for itself pretty flipping awesome..
The only thing that made me raise an eye brow (but will need more investigation) is “Automated Actions” being enabled by default I am not sure thats a hot idea.. but we will see.
Hi Simon,
did you have a standalone Hyperic before an upgrade vROps to 6.1?
I did have a Hyperic instance in my lab yes.
Hi,
You can change the agent.listenPort property, in the agent.properties file to contain a different port number.
This way when you boot the EP Ops Agent, it will use a different listening port than what the Hyperic agent uses, and they will both succeed to run.
Great tip! thank you for the heads up!
After the upgrade to v6.1, can vROps v6.1 still receive data from the Hyperic agent until you have time to uninstall the Hyperic agent and move to the new EP Ops Agent in a systematic fashion? I ask because we have hundreds of VM’s and we won’t be able uninstall the old and reinstall the new all in one downtime.
Thanks!
You can deploy the EPOps agent on your existing VMs and run it side by side with the hyperic agent (it is supported) If you have the hyperic adaptor you will already see those VMs in vROps regardless but if you want to retire Hyperic then this is one course of action. You will however have duplicate objects..
I havent seen any clear guides on best practice so if keeping that historical data is important I would go with the above for say 30 days then gradually remove the Hyperic agents and remove the Hyperic Management pack