I did a quick search online and could not find a collated list so, by way of a quick summary from all the VMworld 2018 announcements and comments my good friend and PM for vRealize Operations Sunny Dua has made, I have collated a list of what we can expect to see in the next iteration of vROps (7.0). The list is in no order of interest or importance, some of the mentioned improvements have been long standing requests so enjoy and get hyped (I know I am).

Support to identify VMware #SRM Placeholder Virtual Machines in coming in #vROps 7.0. Unlock powerful use cases such as DR Configuration management and Capacity reservation with this tiny little gem.

One click dashboard sharing with URL, Email, and Embed capabilities…”NO LOGIN REQUIRED”

All new dashboard creation canvas with one-click interactions.

Auto create and manage #vSphere DRS rules for in-cluster or cross cluster workload placement with tags.

You can find out more information on what is to come and more regarding the “self-driving” data center (SDDC) vision that VMware have set out here – https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2018/08/whats-new-in-vrealize-operations-7-0.html 

There are many improvements, changes and new additions to vROps in version 6.7 but one of the aspects that stands out to me personally is the direction VMware are taking with the product. Aside from the obvious addition of cloud costings and comparisons and a reworked capacity planning (from the ground up) and new hook in to  Wavefront (which I really like) there has been some real effort to improve how you can further automate things from vROps.

The list of OOTB actions has grown a lot.. (a sample below)

Couple this with the vRO Management Pack and you can have some serious proactive and reactive automation taking place based on effective monitoring.

If you were already considering using vROps for automation then perhaps this will tip the balance and if you were in the no camp then perhaps you will reconsider?

Either way 6.7 looks great (loving the dark theme)

You can check out more about the overall changes and improvements in the follow sites.

Release notes – https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations-Manager/6.7/rn/vRealize-Operations-Manager-67.html 

Nice blog summary – https://lukaswinn.net/2018/04/12/welcome-to-vrealize-operations-6-7/ 

Something that has come up with customers recently is why and when old data is cleaned up from your vROps instance.

I will make the assumption that you have your data retention set to 6 months but the process is the same whether the value is less than or greater than 6 months.

When data reaches and or goes beyond the age threshold set in the global settings it will be cleaned away by a daily process “Old Data Cleaner”.

However, the Old Data Cleaner serves another purpose and in many cases very vital.

If the disk space on the vROps instance becomes less than 10% the Old Data Cleaner thread will automatically run to maintain some free disk space. This is critical to keeping vROps running and prevents it from falling over. However in some cases I have seen a reasonable performance hit on the vROps instance -if- the ingest rate on the vROps instance is very high, thus forcing the Cleaner to work full time.

If you hit the issue outlined above you will need to add additional disk space to the vROps instance.

In this episode, Sunny gave us a deep dive into the WLP and WLB features of vROps.

We were also joined by a special guest, Jad El-Zein who gave us a great insight into how vRA utilises vROps for initial placement of freshly provisioned VMs

We would highly appreciate it if you could spend 30 seconds to fill up this quick and simple survey to provide us your feedback. You can also request topics of your choice through this survey.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2J2G82S

Here is the recording!

This was as I expected, the busiest day sessions wise for me. There was so much good stuff I had to be a little ruthless on what I wanted and or needed to attend while also wanting to get into the solutions exchange.

Also at the end of the day the customer appreciate party was scheduled so that was something I was looking forward to a great deal (Hint – Kaiser Chiefs)

First up for me (and it was not a hard choice) was Iwan’s vROps session “Operationalise your world”. This was subject he usually covers in a day (workshop) so it was condensed right down to 1 hour but he did a great job in getting the message across about how to effectively monitor and bring real business value with vROps.

The session challenged vROps practitioners approach and also gave new ways to use the product to help deliver even better service to the users/customers.

If you want to learn more about this I would highly recommend visiting Iwan’s blog and search for the session video when it becomes available on the VMworld videos site.

Iwan dropping some serious vROps knowledge.

(more…)

I managed to dodge the rainstorms in the morning before arriving, the hotel being just across the road from the Venue was a huge help (Thank you Xtravirt)

The main session was great particularly HCX announcement and the VR admin demo.

I then hit the solutions exchange as soon as it opened. There are all the usual suspects there -except- Cisco (anyone know why?)

It was also great to see the guys from Blue Medora.

On Wednesday I plan to spend some more time in the Solutions exchange to see what new cool and useful tech is on offer to help achieve customer goals.

(more…)

In this coming episode, Sunny will DIVE DEEP into the interesting topic of introducing automation into operations.

While we all know that, automating day to day operations tasks is becoming the choice of an IT organization, it is hard for them to find a solution which can completely understand their business policies and provide them the efficiency they need from automating simple operational tasks.

Based on our research, we found that, one of the most time consuming activity done by an Virtual Infrastructure Administrator is to juggle resources between the changing business requirements and ensure that every VM which is being hosted in their environment is BEING SERVED WELL.

With VMware vRealize Operations 6.6, a new and innovative solution is introduced to cater to this use case. While there are other products in the market which claim to have done this, what we have learned from our customers that Technology applied by those solutions quickly forgets that Automation should also consider business policies.

With Workload Balance as the next topic of our Webinar Series, we will talk about some real world use cases and demonstrate how we can AUTOMATE OPERATIONS keeping in mind the business goals and requirements. We have selected a date post VMworld Barcelona and hopefully it will suit you.

Make sure that you save the invite. Here are the details:

Session Title – Part 4 – Optimizing Workload Performance using Automation
Date – Tuesday, 19th September 2017
Time – 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Pacific Time
Speakers – Sunny Dua & Simon Eady
Webinar Link – Click here to join the session when it’s time
Save Invite – Click here to save invite 

Having missed last years VMworld I feel very ready for attending the EMEA VMworld in Barcelona.

I almost felt annoyed about missing last year as the big announcements really caused a stir in the community and wider afield. (VMware on AWS) The announcements from the US VMworld this year were equally exciting so I am very keen to hear what else VMware has planned to reveal in a Barcelona.

I have put a good deal of effort into planning what I will be doing and attending to maximise my time there without burnout (Veterans I hear you laughing)

This will also be the first time I get to go officially for my employer Xtravirt (previous years I have been lucky enough to self fund etc).

My focus this year on sessions will be vRealize Operations, vRealize Automation, VMware on AWS and vSAN. Although where possible I also hope to cram in some NSX (Hands on Labs) as well.

Also this year I will get to finally meet my vROps Webinar Brother Sunny Dua, this is something I am looking forward to a great deal and we also plan to record a webinar while at the event so watch this space! Sadly Sunny will not be able to make it to Barcelona so I shall have to wait a little longer to meet. The next webinar has been scheduled though and there will be a guest!

Another first for me will be to attend the VMworld EMEA Hackathon on the Monday evening. Up until now I have never attended a hackathon although I am always told they are a enjoyable and a great source of learning so when I was told (er I mean encouraged) to attend by Sam McGeown I registered. I am looking forward to what promises to be a really fun event.

Aside from the social activities which are always a very high standard I am looking forward to visiting the solutions exchange and checking out the latest tech that the vendors have to offer.

Finally but not least I am really looking forward to meeting old and new faces in the vCommunity so if you are attending VMworld this year and want to say hi, ping me on twitter it would be great to meet.

Hello there, we hope you enjoyed the last episode of vRealize Operations Webinar Series.This time around we spoke about the all new version of the product : vRealize Operations Manager 6.6, which was recently released by VMware.
We started with an overview of all the cool new stuff and then drill down into individual areas. We then jumped into a Live Demo as usual to see the new features in action.

We would highly appreciate if you could spend 30 seconds to fill up this quick and simple survey to provide us your feedback. You can also request topics of your choice through this survey.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2J2G82S

Here is the recording!