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Helping You Navigate The Technology Jungle! In Partnership With
The Gorilla Guide to...
®
VMWARE PRESENTS
VMware vRealize Operations 8.1 and CloudBrien M. Posey
INSIDE THE GUIDE:
• Support for Kubernetes
• Better Alert Management
• Powerful Troubleshooting
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VMware vRealize Operations 8.1 and CloudBy Brien M. Posey
THE GORILLA GUIDE TO...
Copyright © 2020 by ActualTech Media
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America.
ACTUALTECH MEDIA
6650 Rivers Ave Ste 105 #22489North Charleston, SC 29406-4829www.actualtechmedia.com
PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
EDITORKeith Ward, ActualTech Media
PROJECT MANAGERWendy Hernandez, ActualTech Media
EXECUTIVE EDITORJames Green, ActualTech Media
LAYOUT AND DESIGNOlivia Thomson, ActualTech Media
WITH SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS FROMBrandon Gordon, VMwareMatt Jones, VMware
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iv
ENTERING THE JUNGLE
Introduction: Do You (v)Realize You Can Do More with Your Infrastructure? 8
Chapter 1: Overview of vRealize Operations 10
What Is vRealize Operations? 10
The Four Pillars 11
Maximum Operational Flexibility 12
Available On-Premises or SaaS 13
System Requirements 15
A Storied Past 17
Architecture, Scalability, and Fault Tolerance 21
Warning: Danger Ahead 24
Chapter 2: What’s New in vRealize Operations 26
Support for vSphere with Tanzu 26
Kubernetes to the Container Rescue 27
Native Support for VMware Cloud on AWS 28
vRealize Log Insight Integration 29
Smarter, More Powerful Troubleshooting 30
Support for Public Clouds 31
Alert Importance 31
Rate Card-Based Pricing 34
Licensing 36
Edition Comparison 38
Chapter 3: vRealize Operations Use Cases 41
Capacity Planning 41
Ongoing Capacity Management 44
Performance Management 46
Proactive Workload Optimization 48
Troubleshooting 51
Hitting the Workbench 52
Application Monitoring and Service Discovery 54
Configuration and Compliance 56
An Indispensable Tool for Every Admin 60
Don’t Wait Any Longer 61
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CALLOUTS USED IN THIS BOOK
The Gorilla is the professorial sort that enjoys helping people learn. In the School House callout, you’ll gain insight into topics that may be outside the main subject but are still important.
This is a special place where you can learn a bit more about ancillary topics presented in the book.
When we have a great thought, we express them through a series of grunts in the Bright Idea section.
Takes you into the deep, dark depths of a particular topic.
Discusses items of strategic interest to business leaders.
vi i
ICONS USED IN THIS BOOK
DEFINITIONDefines a word, phrase, or concept.
PAY AT TENTIONWe want to make sure you see this!
WATCH OUT! Make sure you read this so you don’t make a critical error!
TIP A helpful piece of advice based on what you’ve read.
KNOWLEDGE CHECKTests your knowledge of what you’ve read.
GPSWe’ll help you navigate your knowledge to the right place.
INTRODUCTION
Do You (v)Realize You Can Do More with Your Infrastructure?
Welcome to The Gorilla Guide To…® VMware vRealize Operations 8.1!
Whether you’re brand-new to vRealize Operations, or a grizzled vet-
eran of the product, you’ll find valuable information in here to guide
you in your understanding of VMware’s latest update to its primary
tool for optimizing IT infrastructure so it works for you, rather than
you working for it.
IT staff has it tough these days. There’s simply more to track and
manage than ever before, especially with the rise of cloud computing.
Back in the “good ol’ days,” your data center was walled off from the
outside world, and much easier to manage and control.
Those days are long gone. Data and applications can live nearly
anywhere now, and operating environments can be created and de-
stroyed on a continual basis—in fact, that’s the idea behind the rise
of containers. All of this means that your environment is constantly
changing, and admins simply can’t keep up anymore.
Help is here, and its name is vRealize Operations 8.1. Its automation,
troubleshooting, and remediation features—infused with advanced
artificial intelligence (AI) to make it faster, more accurate and more
seamless—can turn those operational nightmares into a well-oiled
I NT R O D U CT I O N 9
machine that basically runs itself: VMware calls this “self-driving”
operations, and it’s the motivating force behind everything vRealize
Operations does for you.
This book provides an overview of vRealize Operations 8.1, and is
stuffed full of everything you need to know to get started with it and
make best use of it. We’ll detail where it fits into the larger world of
VMware products, the new features that set 8.1 apart from previous
versions, top use cases for it, and more.
vRealize Operations 8.1 has changed with the times, and now sup-
ports a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model for maximum efficiency
with minimum hands-on effort required. It’s also fully cloud-en-
abled and ready to help you navigate that complicated realm.
Once you’re done with this Guide, you’ll know what vRealize
Operations 8.1 can do, and why it’s a must-have tool for helping you
modernize your infrastructure.
So let’s get started with Chapter 1, introducing vRealize Operations.
In This Chapter:• What is vRealize Operations?
• Where vRealize Operations fits into the VMware product line
• How to make vRealize Operations scalable and fault tolerant
• vRealize Operations version release history
What Is vRealize Operations?vRealize Operations makes it easier for IT pros to manage VMware
and other environments—both on-premises and in the cloud—at
scale. It solves one of IT’s biggest problems: How to get a handle
on infrastructure that’s transforming massively, from an in-house
concern to a global estate with sprawling arms of software and hard-
ware everywhere.
This is due in large measure to the rise of cloud computing, and the
necessity to “do IT” on-premises, in public clouds, in remote and
branch offices, at the network edge—in other words, wherever work
is getting done.
And despite this huge increase in complexity, customers and end us-
ers expect everything to work as it did in the days when everything
was in the building—servers, storage, networking, and so on. With
the same speed (or faster), and without downtime. No problem, eh?
Overview of vRealize Operations
CHAPTER 1
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 1
Although that’s a joke, the reality is that it doesn’t have to be.
VMware, which basically inaugurated virtualization, has kept raising
the bar for what can be done, while never forgetting those core re-
quirements of reliability, efficiency, and ease-of-use.
Which leads us to the latest version of its primary tool for optimizing
infrastructure to achieve those lofty goals: vRealize Operations 8.1. It
provides a unified operations platform that automates management
of both on-premises and cloud environments, eliminating the la-
bor-intensive, slow, and error-prone manual processes that inhibit
your organization’s ability to compete.
The Four PillarsVMware’s ultimate goal with vRealize Operations is to deliver
self-driving IT operations. Self-driving IT is a concept in which AI
and automation are used to smoothly manage the organization’s IT
resources, while also resolving issues. There are four pillars:
• Continuous performance optimization
• Efficient capacity and cost management
• App-aware intelligent remediation
• Integrated compliance and configuration
vRealize Operations is not solely geared toward monitoring an organization’s VMware infrastructure. Instead, it provides holistic IT monitoring, capacity management, and troubleshooting capabilities. vRealize Operations is extensible through management packs, and can be integrated with other applications in the vRealize Suite.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 2
vRealize Operations includes features and capabilities that ad-
dress each of these four pillars. Additionally, the Troubleshooting
Workbench, which will be discussed in detail later on, greatly sim-
plifies root cause analysis in troubleshooting.
Maximum Operational FlexibilityvRealize Operations is flexible, in that it can work as a standalone
product or as part of a larger solution. It is a part of VMware’s
vRealize Suite, but is also included within the cloud starter platform
(vCloud Suite), and incorporated into VMware’s vSAN HCI solution
(the Enterprise Plus Edition).
You can also get vRealize Operations with the full VMware Hybrid
Cloud Stack (VMware Cloud Foundation Starter, Advanced, and
Enterprise Editions). VMware also offers a SaaS version of vRealize
Operations (vRealize Operations Cloud) for those who prefer the
efficiency and convenience of a managed cloud service.
As mentioned before, vRealize Operations is also a key component
of VMware’s vRealize suite. vRealize consists of several individual
products, each designed to help administrators build, manage, and
maintain their virtualization infrastructure and hybrid cloud envi-
ronments. The components included in the suite vary by edition:
• vRealize Operations. vRealize Operations is designed to monitor
each individual component of an organization’s virtual envi-
ronment, to keep things running smoothly. vRealize Operations
8.1 can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud as part of the
vRealize Operations Cloud SaaS option.
• vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. vRealize Suite Lifecycle
Manager helps businesses accelerate their deployments and
upgrades, while also improving the overall stability of their en-
vironments and enhancing end-user productivity.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 3
• vRealize Log Insight. vRealize Log Insight collects logging
data from vSphere and other VMware software, in an effort to
provide administrators with near real-time insight into their
environments.
• vRealize Automation. vRealize Automation deploys and provi-
sions services across both private and public clouds. This tool,
available in the Advanced and Enterprise editions, also provides
automated deployment services for hypervisors, and physical
infrastructure.
Available On-Premises or SaaSAlthough vRealize Operations has traditionally been an on-premises
product, VMware also provides a SaaS option called the vRealize
Operations Cloud (Figure 1). While there are still compelling use
cases for running vRealize Operations on-premises, there are many
benefits to taking a SaaS-based approach.
The first such benefit is that by running vRealize Operations in the
cloud, the organization is freed from performing maintenance-re-
lated tasks. VMware handles all of the hardware and software
Figure 1: vRealize Operations Cloud
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 4
maintenance related to vRealize Operations, freeing IT pros to focus
on more important things.
A second benefit is simplified scalability. When an organization
runs vRealize Operations on-premises, it must scale its cluster
as the organization’s IT footprint grows. Even though the cluster
nodes can be run as virtual appliances, the organization may have
to purchase additional hardware resources to make up for those that
are now being consumed by the additional nodes. Note also that the
organization will be responsible for purchasing additional software
licenses.
Conversely, running vRealize Operations in the cloud as a SaaS makes
scalability far easier. Clusters can be scaled on demand, without the
organization having to worry about procuring additional hardware.
A third benefit to running vRealize Operations as a SaaS is “anywhere
access.” Because the vRealize Operations software is running in the
cloud, it’s accessible over the Internet from anywhere on the planet.
This is growing in importance, as current and future conditions are
likely to lead to more remote work, rather than less.
Finally, running vRealize Operations as a SaaS gives organizations
the assurance that the software is configured correctly. VMware han-
dles the deployment process, as well as the low-level configuration
process. This means that organizations who choose the SaaS option
never have to wonder if vRealize Operations is configured according
to VMware’s best practices.
VMware makes sure that its SaaS offerings are deployed in a way
that is consistent with all of the various security and compliance
mandates, and that vRealize Operations is fully resilient.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 5
System Requirements
The system requirements for deploying VMware vRealize Operations
8.1 on-premises vary based on the number and types of objects that
exist in your environment, and on the data that’s collected.
A vRealize Operations 8.1 cluster typically consists of one or more
VMware virtual appliances. These virtual appliances must run on
ESX/ESXi or higher, and must be managed by VMware vCenter Server
6.0 or later.
VMware defines five different cluster node configurations (not
counting remote collector nodes), ranging in size from extra small to
extra large. These sizes determine the node hardware requirements,
the number of objects that can be monitored, and the maximum
number of nodes within a cluster. Table 1 illustrates the capabilities
and limitations of each node size.
You can find the full list of requirements and limitations on the
vRealize Operations 8.1 Sizing Guidelines (78495) page.1 VMware
also provides a sizing worksheet that you can use when planning a
VMware Operations Manager deployment.2
Since vRealize Operations Cloud is offered as a SaaS, its system re-
quirements differ significantly from the on-premises solution. The
only node type that organizations will need to deploy on-premises is
1 https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/78495
2 https://kb.vmware.com/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/download/068f400000HqWs3AAF
If you deploy vRealize Operations cluster nodes on ESX/ESXi 6.5, those hosts must be patched with Update 1 or higher. The build number must be higher than 5869303.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 6
Table 1: Cluster node configurations for vRealize Operations
Extra Small Small Medium Large Extra
Large
vCPU 2 4 8 16 24
Default Memory (GB)
8 16 32 48 128
Maximum Memory Configuration (GB)
N/A 32 64 96 N/A
Ratio of vCPUs to physical cores at scale maximums
1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1
Single node maximum objects
350 5000 15,000 20,000 45,000
Single node maximum collected metrics
70,000 800,000 2,500,000 4,000,000 10,000,000
Multi-node maximum objects per node
N/A 3000 8500 16,500 40,000
Multi-node maximum collected objects per node
N/A 700,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 7,500,000
Maximum number of nodes per cluster
1 2 8 16 8
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 7
a Cloud Proxy Node. Cloud Proxy Nodes can be deployed in either a
small or standard configuration. The system requirements for Cloud
Proxy Nodes are shown in Table 2.
A Storied PastEven though vRealize Operations 8.1 is relatively new, the product
itself actually has a history dating back several years. vRealize
Operations was originally known as VMware vCenter Operations
Manager. VMware changed the name to VMware vRealize Operations
starting with version 6.0.0.
It’s worth noting that extra small nodes are intended only for use in lab deployments and are not suitable for production use. Extra small nodes are also incapable of being used in multi-node clusters.
Table 2: vRealize Operations Cloud requirements
Small Standard
vCPU 2 4
Memory (GB) 8 32
Maximum Memory Configuration (GB)
32 64
Ratio of vCPUs to physical cores at scale maximums
1:1 1:1
Maximum objects 8000 40,000
Maximum collected metrics 1,200,000 6,000,000
Multi-node maximum objects per node
3000 8500
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 8
Each version has added new features, enhancing the product’s
capabilities from one version to the next. The current version of
vRealize Operations is more capable and easier to use than previous
iterations. Increasing ease of use, in fact, is a priority in every update
of vRealize Operations.
Table 3 lists some of the previous versions of the software, along
with their release dates and build numbers.
vRealize Operations has evolved considerably throughout its history,
with the continual goal of making operations more streamlined,
easier to use, and more automated. In the version 6.x era, for exam-
ple, VMware added an enhanced, AI-powered Distributed Resource
Scheduler (“Predictive DRS”) integration, which predictively balanc-
es VMs based on their anticipated workloads.
Version 6.x also introduced features like a new workload utilization
dashboard, the ability to import single sign-on users, and portable
licensing.
One of the most significant new features updated during this time
frame was a new AI-powered capacity analytics engine that was
introduced in version 6.7. This feature allowed for predictive, re-
al-time analytics so that workloads could be continuously optimized
based on their projected workloads.
vRealize Operations supported AI long before the introduction of the Distributed Resource Scheduler. The Dynamic Thresholds feature, for example, dates back to before version 6.0. This feature serves as an alternative to fixed thresholds, and is based on historical and incoming data. It gives vRealize Operations a way of distinguishing between a normal situation and an abnormal condition.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 1 9
Product Release Date
Build Number
VMware vRealize Operations 8.1.0 4/14/2020 15972145
VMware vRealize Operations 8.0.1 12/9/2019 15331180
VMware vRealize Operations 8.0.0 10/17/2019 14857692
VMware vRealize Operations 7.5.0 4/11/2019 13165949
VMware vRealize Operations 7.0.0 9/20/2018 10098133
VMware vRealize Operations 6.7.0 4/12/2018 8183617
VMware vRealize Operations 6.6.1 8/8/20176163035, 6163041
VMware vRealize Operations 6.5.0 3/2/20175097674, 5097678, 5041485
VMware vRealize Operations 6.4.0 11/15/20164635874, 4535875, 4635873
VMware vRealize Operations 6.3.0 8/23/20164276418, 4276419, 4443152
VMware vRealize Operations 6.2.1 4/26/20163774215, 3774216
VMware vRealize Operations 6.2.0a 2/10/20163528905, 3528904
VMware vRealize Operations 6.1.0 9/10/20153038306, 3038035
VMware vRealize Operations 6.0.3 9/10/2015 3041065
VMware vRealize Operations 6.0.2 6/9/2015 2777062
VMware vRealize Operations 6.0.1 2/26/2015 2523163
VMware vRealize Operations 6.0.0 12/9/2014 2263110
VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.5 3/12/2015 2532416
VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.4 10/28/2014 2199700
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 0
Version 7.0 added many more new features. One of the most sig-
nificant new capabilities was fully automated workload balancing
across clusters, down to the host level. This allows workloads to be
seamlessly migrated from an overworked cluster to a less-burdened
cluster. Migrations are no longer limited to hosts within a cluster.
Version 7 also brought us enhanced capacity reclamation workflows,
and the ability to work through various what-if scenarios prior to
adding new workloads and other resources.
These what-if scenarios are useful for things like capacity planning
and cloud migration planning. This was also the version that in-
troduced multi-cloud support and regulatory compliance templates
designed to help organizations to more easily adhere to regulations
such as HIPAA, FISMA, and PCI.
As you’ve seen, vRealize Operations was a pioneer in the integration
of AI—and in 8.1, it’s taken that integration further, with enhanced
troubleshooting capabilities in the Troubleshooting Workbench that
helps IT pros to easily identify and resolve issues. More about that is
coming in Chapter 3.
Table 3: Previous versions of vRealize Operations
Product Release Date
Build Number
VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.3 9/9/2014 2076729
VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.2 6/24/2014 1885282
VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.1 3/11/2014 1637685
VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.0 12/10/2013 1448123
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 1
Architecture, Scalability, and Fault TolerancevRealize Operations 8.1 on-premises deployments are based around
the use of cluster nodes. It is critically important to be familiar
with the various node types before attempting to deploy vRealize
Operations—the types of nodes used within a deployment signifi-
cantly impact scalability and fault tolerance.
In addition to being familiar with the various node types, you also
need to be familiar with the concepts of management packs and
cloud accounts. A management pack is a collection of elements that
collectively allow you to monitor a particular type of resource. Some
of the components included in a management pack might include
things like dashboards, alerts, and reports. Some management packs
are included with vRealize Operations, while others can be added on
through management packs.
A cloud account is an interface between vRealize Operations and a
monitored endpoint device, such as a vCenter Server. It allows vRe-
alize Operations to communicate with the monitored resource.
As previously noted, vRealize Operations deployments are based
around the use of one or more “cluster nodes.” These cluster nodes
can be classified as either “analytics nodes” or “remote collec-
tor nodes.”
An analytics node is a vRealize Operations cluster node that gathers
or analyzes data. There are three different types of analytics nodes:
master nodes, replica nodes, and data nodes, as depicted in Figure 2.
Master nodes form the foundation of the cluster. Every cluster re-
quires a master node, and the first node that you create in a cluster
is automatically designated as the master node. All of the cluster’s
other nodes are managed by the master node.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 2
It is possible to create clusters consisting of only a single node. In
a single-node cluster, the cluster’s only node is its master node.
Single-node clusters rely on vSphere HA to provide high availability.
The second type of node is the data node. Data nodes are generally
used in larger deployments. Their job is to use adapters to connect to
monitored endpoints, and to perform data collection and analytics.
The third type of analytic node is the replica node. Replica nodes
exist purely for the sake of high availability. As the name implies,
replica nodes are replicas of the master node—they allow the cluster
to survive the loss of an analytics node.
In addition to analytics nodes, vRealize Operations also supports the
use of remote collector nodes. Remote collector nodes are used in
large deployments that span multiple data centers.
User Application RemoteCollector arc-1
Collector Group 1Endpoint
Collector Group 1Endpoint
LB analytics
ANALYTICS CLUSTER
COLLECTORS GROUP 1
Analytic Nodeanalytic-1
Analytic Nodeanalytic-2
Analytic Nodeanalytic-3
Analytic Nodeanalytic-4
Analytic Nodeanalytic-5
Analytic Nodeanalytic-6
Remote Collectorremote-1
A
Remote Collectorremote-2
B
COLLECTORS GROUP 2
Remote Collectorremote-3
C
Remote Collectorremote-4
D
Remote Collectorremote-5
E
Analytic Nodeanalytic-7
Analytic Nodeanalytic-8
Figure 2: The three different types of vRealize Operations analytics nodes: mas-ter, replica, and data, plus the support of a remote collector node
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 3
A remote collector node doesn’t store any data, nor does it perform
analytical functions. Instead, the remote collector node is deployed in
the remote data center, and its job is to collect data in that location,
and then send the data back to the analytics cluster.
Additionally, there is a witness node, which is used for continuous
availability. It allows vRealize Operations to survive the loss of all
nodes in a fault domain, whether it’s a data center, cluster, site,
and so on.
Since analytics nodes are intended for use within a data center,
whereas remote collector nodes are used outside of the data center,
there are some basic requirements pertaining to the way that these
nodes should be used.
One of the most important things to know about analytics nodes
is that they must be matched to one another. VMware defines five
different node sizes (which will be discussed in the next section),
and all of the nodes within an analytics cluster must be of the same
size. If you make a change to one of the nodes, you’ll have to update
the other nodes within the cluster to match.
When continuous availability is being used, all the nodes within a
fault domain must reside within a common vCenter cluster, and
must also be a part of the same VLAN. Additionally, this VLAN must
not span multiple data centers.
Using Agents Data nodes and remote collector nodes
leverage the use of agents to facilitate
the data collection process. vRealize
Operations includes endpoint operations
agents, which can be installed within
a VM, allowing Windows or Linux to be
monitored.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 4
The requirements for remote collector nodes are not quite as rigid
as those pertaining to analytics nodes. Unlike analytics nodes, re-
mote collector nodes do not have to be size matched. You can deploy
remote collector nodes in a variety of sizes based on your data col-
lection needs.
Because remote collector nodes are designed to be installed in remote
data centers, it’s assumed that those nodes will be behind a firewall.
It’s important to note, however, that the use of Network Address
Translation (NAT) is not supported for remote collector nodes.
Warning: Danger AheadAll of this helps vRealize Operations with one of its core functions:
its impressive alerting abilities. vRealize Operations collects a variety
of performance metrics from the objects it monitors, then compares
those performance metrics to a series of predetermined performance
thresholds. If an object’s performance causes any of the correspond-
ing threshold values to be exceeded, vRealize Operations generates
an administrative alert.
Of course, this explanation is over-simplified. If vRealize Operations
were to notify an administrator every time that a threshold value
was exceeded, the administrator would be flooded with non-stop
alerts. As such, VMware has developed a sophisticated system for
differentiating between conditions that truly warrant an administra-
tive notification, and those that are benign.
All nodes, regardless of type, require a static IP address. In addition, their fully qualified domain name (FQDN) must be DNS resolvable.
O V E R V I E W O F V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 5
When vRealize Operations does produce an alert, it provides the
administrator with actionable insight. The software clearly conveys
the nature of the problem, and tells the administrator what needs to
be done to correct the issue. For example, vRealize Operations might
indicate that a particular VM needs additional CPU resources, and
that the problem is best solved by moving the VM to another cluster.
vRealize Operations’ health monitoring goes well beyond looking for
conditions that might impact the monitored resource’s performance
or functionality. A big part of keeping system resources healthy is to
ensure that they remain secure.
As such, vRealize Operations doesn’t solely monitor object perfor-
mance metrics. It also looks for conditions that could undermine the
organization’s security or cause the organization to violate its regu-
latory compliance requirements. In fact, VMware provides a variety
of compliance related management packs specifically designed for
this purpose.
Essential to its usefulness is vRealize Operations’ ability to notify
an administrator when something needs their attention. However,
an administrator can also assess the organization’s health at any
time by examining one of the built-in dashboards. They convey the
overall health of monitored resources, but also give administrators
the ability to drill down into the dashboard reports to access more
granular information about specific resources.
Up NextvRealize Operations 8.1 may have only gotten a point upgrade name,
but it’s a much beefier update than the name would imply. But we’re
not going to add spoilers here—you’ll have to read on to find out all
the new goodies it has.
In This Chapter:• Kubernetes support
• VMC on AWS
• Alert importance
Like any new VMware product release, vRealize Operations 8.1 and
vRealize Operations Cloud are loaded with new features and capa-
bilities. This new version introduces support for Kubernetes, GCP,
and more. This chapter explores some of vRealize Operation’s most
compelling new features.
Support for vSphere with TanzuOne of the single most important new capabilities found in vRealize
Operations is its extended support for Kubernetes. For those who
might not be familiar with Kubernetes, it has become the de facto
tool for managing containers.
Over the last several years, containers have become enormously pop-
ular. Containers are especially well suited to running microservices,
stateless applications (such as web front-ends), and certain other
workloads.
What’s New in vRealize Operations
CHAPTER 2
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 7
One reason containers have become so popular is that they’re com-
pact and portable. A developer can build a containerized application
without having to worry about where the application will eventually
be hosted. The application can be moved directly from the develop-
ment environment to an organization’s data center or to the cloud.
The containerized application will run in exactly the same way it did
in the development environment.
One of the negatives with containers is that they can be difficult to
manage. Early on, container management could only be done from
the command line, using commands that were often completely
foreign to Windows administrators.
Kubernetes to the Container RescueThat led to the creation of Kubernetes, developed by Google as a tool
to make container management easier. In addition to basic container
management tasks, Kubernetes allows admins to scale workloads
and to make containers highly available. It’s used and supported by
all the major cloud providers and has become the standard manage-
ment tool for containerized environments.
vRealize Operations has long included the ability to discover and
monitor Kubernetes clusters. Prior to this release, however, doing
so required the use of the vRealize Operations Management Pack
for Kubernetes.3 This add-on management pack gave vRealize
Operations the ability to recognize Kubernetes topology objects such
as name spaces, clusters, replicas, nodes, pods, and containers.
The vRealize Operations Management Pack for Kubernetes is great for
monitoring non-vSphere Kubernetes environments, like OpenShift,
AWS, Azure, GCP, and so on. The latest version has native support for
vSphere 7 with Tanzu.
3 https://marketplace.vmware.com/vsx/solutions/vrealize-operations-management-pack-for-
container-monitoring?ref=search
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 8
vSphere with Tanzu creates a Kubernetes control plane directly on
the hypervisor layer. It allows you to run Kubernetes workloads di-
rectly on ESXi hosts, and provision them as you would normal VMs.
vRealize Operations gives admins access to the complete Kubernetes
topology of namespaces, clusters, replica sets, nodes, pods, and con-
tainers for monitoring. It provides monitoring and troubleshooting
capabilities that are critical to proper administration of containers,
which are typically much more numerous, portable, and dispersed
than are most VMs. They usually have shorter lifecycles, as well,
being created and destroyed on a regular basis, which makes them
harder to monitor. In these scenarios, vRealize Operation’s manage-
ment abilities become even more crucial.
Native Support for VMware Cloud on AWSVersion 8.1 of vRealize Operations introduces the ability to natively
manage and monitor cloud-based infrastructure within a VMware
Cloud on AWS software-defined data center (SDDC). This is im-
portant, because few organizations today are operating exclusively
on-premises, or solely in the cloud. Having native cloud support
allows vRealize Operations to monitor your resources regardless of
where those resources physically reside.
To do so, an organization must simply add a VMware Cloud on AWS
account, which collects data from vCenter, vSAN, and NSX-T. Doing
so provides the same capabilities as vRealize Operations normally
delivers on-premises. VMware Cloud on AWS integration gives
organizations the ability to monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize
vRealize Operations still allows for the monitoring of traditional Kubernetes clusters through the vRealize Operations Management Pack for Kubernetes.
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 2 9
resources across their hybrid environment, and to perform remedi-
ation if necessary.
In addition, some form of bidirectional connectivity must exist be-
tween the VMware Cloud on AWS and the on-premises environment.
This can be achieved by deploying a remote collector in the VMware
Cloud so that vRealize Operations can collect data from vCenter.
This on-premises architecture requires the use of a VPN. If an orga-
nization is using vRealize Operations Cloud, they’ll need to deploy a
cloud proxy in the VMware Cloud rather than using a remote collec-
tor. In either case, firewall rules will need to be configured to allow
vRealize Operations to collect data over the Internet.
Additionally, if vRealize Operations is being used on-premises, the
vRealize Operations 8.1 cluster will need to be scaled to accommodate
the monitoring of the cloud-based resources. Since connecting a
vRealize Operations cluster to resources within the VMware Cloud
increases the number of objects that must be monitored, the cluster
must be scaled to the point that it can adequately monitor those
resources. Scaling is discussed in detail in the next chapter.
vRealize Log Insight IntegrationA powerful feature of vRealize Operations is the ability to interop-
erate with vRealize Log Insight. vRealize Log Insight is designed to
provide intelligent log file management across an organization’s
You can find detailed information about linking vRealize Operations to the VMware cloud on the Installing vRealize Operations on VMware Cloud on AWS documentation page.1
1 https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations-Manager/8.1/com.vmware.
vcom.vapp.doc/GUID-5964C8B1-738D-4949-B9E9-CECF34D372E6.html
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 0
entire environment. It provides log file analytics for both applica-
tions and infrastructure, and conveys logging data through a series
of actionable dashboards.
vRealize Log Insight provides the ability to search and filter log
events via the Log Insight page. The software allows you to query
the log files and extract events based on text, the event source, the
event time stamp, or the contents of various other fields within the
event logs.
Integrating vRealize Log Insight with vRealize Operations allows
you to view a selected object’s logs alongside the object’s metrics.
Correlating the metrics with the logs makes it much easier to deter-
mine a problem’s root cause.
Smarter, More Powerful TroubleshootingvRealize Operations can be extremely useful in troubleshooting com-
plex problems. In an effort to further expand on vRealize Operations’
troubleshooting capabilities, VMware has enabled integration with
vRealize Network Insight. This integration allows vRealize Operations
to be network-aware and to use its knowledge of the network to aid
in troubleshooting.
Troubleshooting is further enhanced with the integration of vRealize
Operations into the Troubleshooting Workbench, making it easier
than ever to do in-context troubleshooting, view logs as metrics
alongside other vRealize Operations metrics, and so on.
You can find instructions for integrating vRealize Log Insights and vRealize operations on the Configuring vRealize Log Insight with vRealize Operations documenta-tion page.1
1 https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations-Manager/8.1/com.vmware.
vcom.config.doc/GUID-33DAA688-CED8-4D24-8359-1FC1CEDD1191.html
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 1
Support for Public CloudsAlthough VMC on AWS (Figure 3) is undoubtedly VMware’s
most seamless option for extending to the public cloud,
vRealize Operations supports a variety of hyperscale public clouds.
VMware has previously provided monitoring capabilities for AWS and
Azure, and recently added monitoring for GCP. These management
packs allow vRealize Operations to monitor and troubleshoot multi-
cloud environments.
Alert ImportanceOne of the big problems that has always plagued systems monitoring
solutions is that of “alert fatigue.” Simply put, some monitoring
solutions can be overzealous when it comes to generating admin-
istrative alerts. A monitoring solution may in fact, produce so many
alerts that the administrative staff begins to perceive the alerts as
nothing more than meaningless noise, and may even go so far as to
Management
CustomerData Center AWS Global Infrastructure
vCenter
VMware Cloud™ on AWSPowered by VMware Cloud Foundation
vCenter
vSphere vSAN NSX
Figure 3: An overview of VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (VMC on AWS)
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 2
stop paying attention to them. This, of course, undermines the entire
purpose of deploying a monitoring solution.
vRealize Operations 8.1 seeks to eliminate the problem of alert fa-
tigue. In pursuit of that goal, VMware created a system by which
IT pros receive the alerts that they really needed, and in a timely
manner, without all of the needless noise alerts.
The solution was to create a system in which an AI engine assigns
an “importance” score to alerts, thereby helping administrators to
figure out which alerts represent real issues that should be addressed
right away, versus those alerts that are likely to just be noise.
This AI engine gives higher priority to alerts that are relatively rare
(as opposed to noise alerts that happen all the time), and to alerts on
frequently accessed objects. Other criteria is also considered, such as
whether an alert represents an immediate problem, or an issue that
needs to be addressed but isn’t immediately critical (Figure 4).
VMware has also completely revamped the alert definition workflow,
to make it far more intuitive. IT pros who wish to create a new alert
definition (or edit an existing one) are now able to work their way
through a step-by-step guide, which allows them to define symp-
toms, recommendations, and notification rules.
Figure 4: Alerts are now categorized by their importance, or “Criticality”
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 3
VMware has also introduced the ability to add multiple alert defini-
tions to a single notification rule. This greatly simplifies the process
of setting up notifications, because it means that an organization can
set up a relatively small number of notification rules, and then attach
alert definitions to those rules on an as-needed basis, ensuring that
the right group of people are notified of various conditions.
Let’s Learn Something! Alert AssignmentvRealize Operations has long included
a feature that allows an IT pro to take
ownership of an alert. Taking ownership
is an easy way for an IT pro to indicate to
others that they’re working on the issue.
That way, situations can be avoided in which multiple technicians are
working on the same alert, potentially undoing each other’s efforts.
vRealize Operations 8.1 still includes the option to take ownership of an
alert, but it also introduces a new feature that allows IT pros to assign
an alert to someone else.
To learn more about the improvements that VMware has made to notifications, check out the VMware blog post “Fight Alert Fatigue with vRealize Operations 8.1.”1
1 https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2020/05/fight-alert-fatigue-with-
vrealize-operations-8-1.html
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 4
Rate Card-Based PricingIt’s becoming increasingly common for organizations to adopt an IT
service provider model, in which IT plays a role that’s much like that
of a cloud service provider. In doing so, the IT department provides
hardware and support infrastructure, while the organization’s indi-
vidual departments essentially become subscribers. Authorized users
within the departments, for instance, are able to deploy their own
VMs on an as-needed basis, and without IT intervention.
vRealize Operations 8.1 includes a new “rate card pricing” feature
designed to help make users aware of the price associated with their
decision to deploy a new VM. This feature is available when vRealize
Automation is integrated with vRealize Operations 8.1 or vRealize
Operations Cloud.
Having this capability is critical for organizations that issue IT
chargebacks, but it can be just as useful for IT departments that
simply want to reduce costs (and excessive resource consumption)
by curbing the frivolous creation of new VMs.
vRealize Operations allows administrators to define two primary
financial quantities—price and cost. Cost is defined as the amount
of money that’s actually required to run a VM. The overall cost is the
culmination of several individual components such as hardware re-
source consumption, power and cooling, and software licensing fees.
To use rate cards, an organization must deploy vRealize Automation 8.1 and vRealize Operations 8.1, or subscribe to vRealize Automation Cloud and vRealize Operations Cloud. Additionally, these two products must be configured to work with one another, and both applica-tions must be set to the same time zone.
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 5
Price, on the other hand, is the amount of money that the IT depart-
ment charges the individual departments for the privilege of running
the VM (assuming that the organization uses chargebacks).
Price and cost can be the same amount, but in many cases the price
that’s shown to end users is substantially higher than the actual cost
of running the VM. An IT department might, for instance, include a
support fee in a VM’s price. This is similar to the way that cloud ser-
vice providers build a profit margin into their VM instance pricing.
A VM’s price can be based on either a cost factor, or on a specific
price or rate allocation. When the cost factor model is used, the IT
department sets a basic charge for the VM. It then establishes addi-
tional prices that are based on the basic charge.
These additional prices are individually configurable for CPU, memo-
ry, and storage resources, and are entered as a percentage of the basic
charges. If, for example, an administrator wanted to charge a 20%
premium for CPU resources, the CPU price would be set to 1.2, which
would mark a 20% increase over the basic price.
The other option is to use allocation-based pricing, which is sim-
ilar to what some public cloud providers use. This pricing model
allows the IT department to bill its customers on an hourly, daily,
or monthly basis for the hardware resources their VMs consume. For
instance, an organization might choose to price VM memory at 10
cents per gigabyte per hour, whenever a VM is powered on.
If you want to know more about pricing cards, then be sure to check out the VMware blog article: “VM Pricing with vRealize Automation 8.1 and vRealize Operations 8.1.”1
1 https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2020/04/vm-pricing-with-vrealize-
automation-8-1-and-vrealize-operations-8-1.html
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 6
Administrators are able to configure rates individually for virtual
CPU, memory, and storage resources. In addition, it’s possible to fac-
tor the price of guest operating system licenses into the cost of a VM.
LicensingOrganizations wishing to use vRealize Operations can license it as
a standalone product, or as a part of a VMware software bundle. As
discussed, it’s also available as a service. Since every organization’s
needs are unique, VMware provides four different licensing models.
The first of these licensing models involves the use of Portable
Licensing Units (PLUs). PLUs are used for licensing vRealize
Operations as a part of vCloud Suite or vRealize Suite.
The big advantage of PLUs is the flexibility they offer for managing
workloads. No matter where the workloads are—on-premises or in
the cloud—PLUs automatically change the metric to fit the current
environment (Figure 5). In the types of fluid situations that charac-
terize today’s workloads, this is an important feature. And no license
conversions or additional costs are required.
PORTABLE LICENSE UNIT
PrivateCloud
PublicCloud
One License Unit
OR
vSphere Hosts
1 CPU/License Unit 15 OSIs/License Unit
Physical
Third-partyHypervisor
VMC on AWS
Other PublicClouds
Non-vSphere Hosts
Figure 5: Portable License Unit options
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 7
A PLU allows vRealize Operations to manage an unlimited number
of VMs or operating system instances, as long as they reside on one
on-premises vSphere CPU or on a single VMware Cloud on AWS CPU.
As previously noted, a PLU can also be used to run VMware software
on other supported public clouds, physical servers, or on third-party
hypervisors. In those cases, the PLU covers up to 15 operating system
instances.
The second way in which vRealize Operations can be licensed is to
use per-processor licensing. You can use per-processor licensing to
license the Standard, Advanced, or Enterprise Editions, as long as
you are licensing it as a standalone product rather than as a part of a
software suite. As its name implies, per-processor licensing is billed
on a per-CPU basis.
The third option for licensing vRealize Operations is to use per-VM
(or per-operating system instance) licensing. This licensing model
can be used when licensing vRealize Operations as a standalone
product, and is supported for use with the Standard, Advanced, and
Enterprise Editions. The license cost is based on the number of VMs
or operating system instances that vRealize Operations is monitoring.
The fourth option is to acquire vRealize Operations through a
SaaS subscription. You can find more information on the vRealize
Operations Cloud website.4
4 https://cloud.vmware.com/vrealize-operations-cloud
VMware provides a whitepaper on licensing issues for the vRealize Suite and vCloud Suite. It covers the licensing process in granular detail.1
1 https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/
products/vrealize/vmware-vrealize-suite-vcloud-suite-licensing-packaging-
whitepaper.pdf
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 8
Edition Comparison
VMware offers three different editions of its vRealize Operations
software. The Standard Edition is VMware’s entry-level offering. The
Advanced Edition is the midgrade offering, while Enterprise Edition
is the most capable version. These three editions vary in terms of
both their licensing and use case. Table 4 illustrates the differences
between the three editions.
Standard Advanced Enterprise
Standalone Licensing
Per VM (VM)/Per Processor (CPU)
Per Operating System Instance (OSI)/Per Processor (CPU)
Per Operating System Instance (OSI)/Per Processor (CPU)
Available in Suite
N/A
VMware vRealize Suite/vCloud Suite Standard, Advanced (PLU)
VMware vRealize Suite/vCloud Suite Enterprise (PLU)
There are three different editions of vRealize Operations.
• Standard Edition is used primarily for monitoring vSphere environments.
• The Advanced Edition allows for monitoring and optimizing beyond vSphere, into multiple datacenter and hybrid infrastructure elements.
• The Enterprise Edition is used for monitoring and optimizing with full infrastructure-to-app visibility, and across multiple clouds
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 3 9
Standard Advanced Enterprise
Performance Monitoring and Analytics
vSphere Only
The entire SDDC, VMware Cloud on AWS, and VCPP based hybrid clouds
The entire SDDC, VMware Cloud on AWS, hybrid clouds, and multi-cloud
Capacity Management and Planning
vSphere only with planning to add more workloads
Integrated capacity and costing for entire SDDC and VMware Cloud on AWS; multiple what-if scenarios for HCI planning, adding and removing workloads, procurement and multi-cloud migration
Integrated capacity and costing for entire SDDC and VMware Cloud on AWS; multiple what-if scenarios for HCI planning, adding and removing workloads, procurement and multi-cloud migration
SDDC and VMware Cloud on AWS Security and Compliance
vSphereSDDC and VMware Cloud on AWS
SDDC and VMware Cloud on AWS
Remediation and Troubleshooting
vSphere only
The entire SDDC, VMware Cloud on AWS, and VCPP based hybrid clouds
The entire SDDC, VMware Cloud on AWS, hybrid clouds, Azure, AWS, GCP, containers and applications
Workload Balancing Based on Business/Operational Intent
ManualAutomated and scheduled
Automated and scheduled
W H AT’S N E W I N V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S 4 0
Standard Advanced Enterprise
Dashboards and Reporting
Out of the box dashboards, reports and views
Out of the box and customizable/sharable dashboards, reports, and views
Out of the box and customizable/sharable dashboards, reports, and views
Log Integration
Available Available Available
Standard Costing
N/AAllows for the customization of cost drivers
Allows for the customization of cost drivers
Private Cloud Costing
IncludedCost drivers can be customized
Cost drivers can be customized
OS Monitoring N/A Included Included
Application, Middleware, and Database Monitoring
N/A N/A Included
Third-Party Management Packs Available
15+ for compute and storage
50+ for compute, storage, networking, hyperconvergence, and other hypervisors
75+ for compute, networking, converged, hyperconverged, other hypervisors, containers, public clouds, connectors, databases, big data, and applications
Table 4: Comparing the three editions of vRealize Operations
Next UpNow we dive into some of ways vRealize Operations can boost your
day-to-day productivity. You’ll find that it can do more than you
may have suspected!
In This Chapter:• Capacity planning
• 360-degree troubleshooting
• Performance optimization
• Compliance
The previous chapter discussed many of the newer features of vRe-
alize Operations. Even so, the included features and capabilities of
vRealize Operations go well beyond those that have been discussed
thus far.
In fact, vRealize Operations is an extremely feature-rich product
that lends itself to any number of potential use cases. This chapter
discusses some of the more useful things that organizations can do
with vRealize Operations beyond simply monitoring the resources
that exist within their VMware deployments.
Capacity PlanningCapacity planning is easily one of the most critical skills for IT pro-
fessionals to master. Consider, for example, what would happen if
an administrator were to make an incorrect projection as a result of
their capacity planning efforts. If the administrator were to underes-
timate the organization’s capacity needs, it could ultimately result in
a failure to keep the business running.
vRealize Operations Use Cases
CHAPTER 3
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 2
Imagine, for instance, what would happen to an eCommerce busi-
ness if its IT staff underestimated the organization’s capacity needs.
A new advertising campaign causes an unanticipated sales spike
(normally a good thing), and all three tiers of the infrastructure are
overwhelmed. If there are too few resources ready to spring into
action, the system chokes and crashes.
There go your sales, your customers, your company’s reputation. Your
expensive eCommerce platform is dead in the water, and you may be
closing up shop for good. It’s time to start searching LinkedIn for
job opportunities. All because you didn’t properly estimate resource
requirements.
The flip side of that scenario is ugly, too. If the organization overes-
timated its resource requirements, it would end up purchasing more
hardware and software licenses than it actually needs. If you’re like
most businesses, you don’t have lots of spare IT budget to throw
at unused servers and storage. The money spent on those excess
resources could have been spent on projects that help the organiza-
tion compete more effectively in the market, instead of sitting idle
in a rack.
As you can see, there are direct financial consequences associated
with an organization’s capacity planning efforts. That being the case,
IT professionals are often under an enormous amount of pressure to
accurately project their future capacity needs. This is especially true
now, given the current state of the world.
vRealize Operations can help an organization maximize its capacity
planning. The software provides a series of capacity and utilization
dashboards designed to provide IT professionals with information
regarding the organization’s total resources, the resources that are
still available, and the rate of resource consumption.
The first of these dashboards is the Capacity Overview page. As its
name implies, the Capacity Overview dashboard provides informa-
tion about the managed environment’s total capacity including the
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 3
total hosts, CPU cores, CPU capacity, memory capacity, data stores,
and storage capacity.
This dashboard also outlines CPU and memory capacity utilization
trends, as well as the storage utilization trends. Additionally, the
dashboard provides information about the resources that could po-
tentially be reclaimed.
vRealize Operations also includes a Capacity Reclaim page that helps
IT pros to determine the resources that might potentially be available
for reclamation. The Capacity Reclaimable dashboard bases some of
its recommendations on VMs that have been idle for seven days or
more. This page also helps to identify other potentially reclaimable
resources tied to powered-off VMs, idle VMs, VM snapshots, and
orphaned disks.
Another useful dashboard in this area is the vSAN Capacity Overview
dashboard. This provides useful statistics tied to an organization’s
vSAN utilization. Perhaps more importantly, the dashboard shows
the savings that an organization could realize by taking advantage
of storage deduplication and compression within its vSAN clusters.
This dashboard also tracks storage utilization over time, and proj-
ects the amount of time remaining before the persisting storage is
depleted. This information can be displayed at the individual cluster
level, or as an aggregate of all of the organization’s vSAN storage
resources.
Additionally, the dashboard allows IT pros to experiment with various
what-if scenarios in a way that allows them to visualize the potential
impact various administrative actions. Some of those hypotheticals
could include adding new workloads, adding or decommissioning
hardware, moving workloads to the cloud, and so on.
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 4
Ongoing Capacity Management
vRealize Operations can also help organizations with ongoing ca-
pacity management. Although capacity management has similarities
with capacity planning, there are differences between the two.
Capacity planning is about assessing future resource needs, while
capacity management is more about making the best possible use of
the organization’s existing resources.
Administrators can access the vRealize Operations capacity man-
agement tools by going to the home screen and clicking the Assess
Capacity button (Figure 6). This displays a list of the organization’s
data centers, sorted by their available resources.
Figure 6: Determining when resources will run out via the Assess Capacity function
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 5
As an alternative, the console can sort the list of data centers based
on the time remaining before the data center’s resources are deplet-
ed, or based on cost savings or optimization state. Regardless of how
the output is sorted, data centers are color-coded, with optimized,
healthy data centers shown in green, and data centers with issues
that need to be addressed shown in red.
The most important thing to understand about the capacity man-
agement process is that vRealize Operations acts as more than just a
reporting tool. If, for example, the software detects that a particular
data center isn’t optimized, it will provide optimization recom-
mendations. In many cases, these recommendations can be applied
automatically.
Similarly, if the capacity management tool determines that a partic-
ular data center is low on resources, it can help you figure out why.
The tool allows administrators to drill down into individual clusters
within the data center to see which clusters are resource-constrained,
and which resource within the cluster is in short supply. The soft-
ware can even project when that resource is likely to be depleted.
One of the greatest benefits to using the vRealize Operations capacity
management tools is its ability to identify potential cost savings.
These savings may stem from resource reclamation or a variety of
Starting with vRealize Operations 7.0, VMware began using an exponential decay model for making capacity utilization projections. This is a weighted model in which the most recent data is considered to be the most relevant. This helps vRealize Operations make ca-pacity usage projections based on recent resource usage trends, rather than overweighting resource consumption statistics from long ago.
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 6
other factors. In any case, the dashboard displays an actual dollar
amount, reflecting the amount of money the organization could
potentially save by following the tool’s recommendations.
Performance ManagementvRealize Operations also features a Datastore Utilization dashboard
that, as the name suggests, allows admins to track datastore uti-
lization trends (Figure 7). This dashboard displays a color-coded
map of every datastore being tracked, showing the degree to which
each datastore is being used. Selecting an individual datastore causes
the dashboard to display its historical utilization, as well as its pro-
jected future use. You can also see which VMs reside within a given
datastore.
The VMware Cloud Management blog provides an excellent deep dive into vRealize Operations’ capacity management capabilities.1
1 https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2018/11/deep-dive-into-the-vrealize-
operations-capacity-management.html
Figure 7: Track your datastore usage with the Datastore Utilization dashboard
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 7
The Cluster Utilization dashboard helps organizations to track
vSphere cluster use. This makes it easy to differentiate between
clusters that are being heavily used, and those clusters that have
plenty of free resources available.
If an administrator identifies a cluster that’s using excessive CPU,
memory, storage, or network resources, they have the ability to drill
down into the cluster and see how the individual hosts are being
used. It may be that the resource demand issues can be addressed by
simply moving a high-demand VM to a host within the cluster that’s
not being as heavily used.
Of course, if all of the hosts within the cluster are being heavily
used, it may be an indication that the organization needs to increase
capacity, or move some VMs to a different cluster.
Just as the Cluster Utilization dashboard helps administrators to
identify heavily used clusters, the Host Utilization dashboard can
help to identify vSphere hosts that are being overworked. If an ad-
ministrator identifies such a host, they have the ability to determine
which VMs are placing the greatest load on the host, and to identify
usage patterns over a period of time.
Similarly, the VM Utilization dashboard gives administrators a way
to track resource utilization at the VM level. This dashboard could
help administrators to locate VMs that have been over- or un-
der-provisioned. Additionally, the VM Utilization dashboard gives
administrators the ability to examine VM utilization at a specific
time. That way, administrators can help to gauge the impact that
scheduled processes have on the VM and determine whether or not
the VM has been allocated sufficient resources to accommodate those
scheduled processes.
One more dashboard worth examining is the Heavy Hitter VMs dash-
board (Figure 8). This dashboard identifies the VMs that consistently
consume the most virtual CPU, storage, and network resources. In
some cases, an administrator may be able to make configuration
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 8
changes within these VMs to help them run more efficiently, thereby
consuming fewer resources. In other cases, the high degree of re-
source consumption is unavoidable, but administrators can use the
resource consumption information to make sure that high-demand
VMs are never placed on a common host, helping to prevent a per-
formance bottleneck.
Proactive Workload OptimizationWhen it comes to the subject of automated workload balancing, the
first thing most VMware administrators probably think of is the
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). DRS monitors VMs to make
sure that they’re getting the hardware resources that they need from
the host server. If a host is unable to provide a particular VM with
the required hardware resources, that VM is automatically moved to
another host in a better position to provide the required resources.
Figure 8: It’s easy to spot which VMs are sucking up the most resources with the Heavy Hitter VMs dashboard
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 4 9
As helpful as DRS may be for in-cluster workload balancing, vRe-
alize Operations provides far more extensive workload-balancing
capabilities.
For instance, vRealize Operations monitors an organization’s data
centers to determine if they’re out of balance. A data center is consid-
ered to be out of balance if some of the clusters within the data center
are heavily loaded, while other clusters are carrying a much lighter
workload. If any out of balance data centers are detected, they’re
listed within the vRealize Operations Alerts dashboard.
Clicking on an out of balance data center causes the management
console to display a screen indicating that a data center rebalance
may be required. The console also displays a detailed description of
the condition alongside a Run Action button that administrators can
click to initiate the rebalancing.
This is extremely useful, but can also be a time-consuming manual
process. The administrator must, for example, take the initiative to
look at the alerts, click on a data center rebalancing alert, and then
click the Run Action button. However, it is possible to automate this
entire sequence.
Figure 9: You can rebalance operations automatically, during maintenance peri-ods, with vRealize Operations Workload Optimization
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 0
The vRealize Operations Workload Optimization page (Figure 9)
includes a link that you can use to schedule or automate workload
balance operations (Figure 10). This option allows an organization to
create a schedule so that rebalancing operations happen automatical-
ly during your allotted maintenance period, ensuring that workloads
remain balanced according to the policies that the organization has
established.
The key difference between the way that the Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and the vRealize Operations perform load balancing is that while DRS moves VMs among the hosts within a cluster, vRealize Operations is able to move workloads between clusters, so long as those clusters reside in a common data center.
Figure 10: vRealize Operations makes suggestions for optimizing workloads
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 1
TroubleshootingAs mentioned previously, VMware offers a “better together” solu-
tion by allowing the integration of vRealize Operations and vRealize
Log Insight. vRealize Log Insight augments the already impressive
troubleshooting capabilities of vRealize Operations. When an organi-
zation installs and integrates these two products with one another,
it’s able to easily find the relevant problems and their root causes,
then take corrective action.
Integrating intelligent log analytics into the overall troubleshooting
story can have tremendous benefits. Let’s look at an example.
Suppose that the vRealize Operations console displays an alert indi-
cating that additional CPU capacity needs to be added to a particular
VM because that VM is receiving continuous high CPU usage. Not
only has vRealize Operations detected the issue before it impacts
your environment, but it will even provide a recommendation for
the number of additional virtual CPUs that need to be allocated to
the VM. And you can then make the change from directly within the
console—quick and easy, the way it should be.
But that’s only half the story. The missing link is information as to
why the condition occurred in the first place—why is the VM sud-
denly gobbling up CPU? This is where vRealize Log Insight integra-
tion comes into play. Because vRealize Operations has access to the
logging data provided by vRealize Log Insight, it can correlate alerts
and recommendations to logging data from the affected resource.
In this example, the web server is the culprit. vRealize Operations
has determined that an increase in HTTP traffic is the cause of the
CPU spike. Correlating logging data with actionable insights makes it
much easier to determine the root cause of the issues. Having access
to logging data may help an organization understand what’s really
going on with their IT resources, as opposed to simply treating the
symptoms and never really understanding why those symptoms
occurred in the first place.
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 2
Hitting the WorkbenchThe Troubleshooting Workbench, introduced in vRealize Operations
8.0, has quickly become the new paradigm for rapid, holistic trou-
bleshooting (Figure 11). The Troubleshooting Workbench adds full
stack monitoring to the already impressive collection of trouble-
shooting tools.
The idea behind full stack monitoring is that although it’s better to
address the root cause of a problem than to simply treat the prob-
lem’s symptoms, doing so is often tough. That’s because when an
VMware has a YouTube video demonstrating how 360-degree troubleshooting works.1
1 https://youtu.be/lQmnKgJhUJs
Figure 11: The Troubleshooting Workbench adds full stack monitoring to your environment
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 3
issue occurs, the symptoms may not always align with the actual
source of the problem. This is especially true for workloads that have
multiple external dependencies.
To illustrate this point, imagine that an organization has a web appli-
cation that has recently started performing poorly. It’s possible that
the web application has begun to receive a higher volume of HTTP
requests, and that the web server’s CPU has become overwhelmed
with trying to service all those requests.
But it may be that the root cause of the problem has nothing to do
with the web server itself. Modern web applications typically leverage
load balancers, multiple front-end web servers, back-end databases,
and other components.
It could be, then, that the performance problem stems from a
database flooding the storage subsystem with more IOPS requests
than it’s able to handle. If this were indeed the root cause of the
web application’s performance problems, no amount of web server
troubleshooting would fix the problem, because the problem exists
elsewhere. This is where the Troubleshooting Workbench comes
into play.
The Troubleshooting Workbench can search for any object vRealize
Operations is aware of. Upon locating and selecting the object, ad-
ministrators have the option of specifying the scope of the operation.
The scope determines how many steps beyond the object itself will
be analyzed.
By default, the Troubleshooting Workbench only examines items
directly connected to the object being analyzed (the default scope is
set to “one”). However, the scope can be set to examine items that
are up to five steps away from the selected object.
Once the scope has been configured, vRealize Operations will return
a list of all of the objects that fall within the scope, plus affiliated
events, property changes, and anomalous metrics. There is even an
Advanced Object Relationship view that displays a graphical map of
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 4
the objects within the scope and their relationship to one another.
The interesting thing about this view is that each object on the map
includes a small, color-coded health indicator icon. This makes it
easy to determine which of the objects within the scope are healthy
and which are not, ultimately making it far easier to track down the
root cause of the problem.
Application Monitoring and Service DiscoveryWith infrastructure no longer confined to the data center—hybrid
and multi-cloud environments are now becoming the rule rather
than the exception—full-stack visibility is a necessity more than
ever. That visibility must include applications, which, like data, can
be widely distributed. Without knowing what’s happening with your
applications, troubleshooting and efficient management of your
operations become orders of magnitude harder.
vRealize Operations has support for application monitoring. It en-
ables automatic discovery for supported applications running within
monitored VMs so that organizations can ensure that their applica-
tions are running optimally.
Additionally, the vRealize Operations application monitoring capa-
bilities help organizations balance workloads automatically in a way
that helps to avoid resource contention, for a more smooth-running
environment.
VMware has a blog detailing how the Troubleshooting Workbench is being used in a real-world environment to improve operations. It’s worth checking out.1
1 https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2020/03/vrealize-operations-
troubleshooting-workbench.html
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 5
Once applications have been identified, vRealize Operations begins
to collect application-level runtime metrics from the VM. These
metrics can be used as a tool for monitoring application performance
and health.
To monitor applications using an on-premises vRealize Operations
deployment, the vRealize Application Remote Collector must be de-
ployed. This collector must be deployed as a VM running on a vSphere
server. (VMware provides the collector as a Photon OS OVA file.)
The vRealize Operations Cloud is also capable of monitoring ap-
plications running on-premises, but doesn’t leverage the vRealize
Application Remote Collector. Instead, organizations simply need to
deploy a cloud proxy.
Applications supported for monitoring include:
• Active Directory
• Active MQ
• Apache HTTPD
• Java
• JBoss
• Mongo DB
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft Internet Information Services
• Microsoft SQL Server
• MySQL
• NTPD
• Nginx
• Pivotal Server
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 6
• Postgres
• Rabbit MQ
• Riak
• Microsoft SharePoint
• Tomcat
• Web Logic
• WebSphere
Configuration and ComplianceMany larger organizations are subject to various regulatory re-
quirements, and go to great lengths to ensure compliance. vRealize
Operations includes a number of features designed to make com-
plying with regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, DISA, ISO, and
CIS easier. And while VMware provides templates designed to assist
in complying with some of the more common regulatory standards,
organizations also have the option of defining their own custom
compliance standards.
vRealize Operations makes it easy for an organization to assess its
state of compliance. The built-in Compliance Dashboard provides
statistics related to the number and types of objects that are cur-
rently out of compliance. These statistics are provided for both the
on-premises SDDC, and the SDDC within the VMware Cloud.
Administrators can click on any of the various metrics to access
more detailed information. However, the dashboard also provides a
Compliance Alerts List (Figure 12). This list identifies compliance is-
sues, while also providing additional information such as the alert’s
criticality and which object triggered the alert. This allows adminis-
trators to focus on the highest priority compliance alerts first.
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 7
vRealize Operations is designed to assess the compliance state of
vSphere hosts, VMs, vCenter Servers, distributed port groups, and
distributed switches. In order for vRealize Operations to determine
which objects are out of compliance, it must have some mechanism
for determining what it means for a particular object to be compliant.
VMware provides management packs that define the compliance
requirements associated with a number of different regulatory stan-
dards. Available management packs include:
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) com-
pliance standards
• CIS Security Standards
• Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Security Standards
• The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)
Security Standards
Figure 12: Compliance Alerts serve as a warning—pay attention to them
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 8
• International Organization for Standardization
Security Standards
• The vSphere Security Configuration Guide
Note also that the various vSphere Security Configuration Guide5
provides general guidance on hardening your environment, and is a
solid starting point toward overall compliance.
Once an organization has imported a compliance management pack,
the next thing that must be done is to apply a “risk profile” to the
VMs being monitored for compliance. The risk profiles determine
how strictly the compliance rules will be enforced.
The risk profiles, defined in the vSphere Security Configuration
Guide, determines which of these rules, if broken, is a symptom of
non-compliance.
• Risk Profile 1 is the most strict, with all compliance rules being
treated as symptoms.
• Risk Profile 2 is designed for those environments that require a
medium level of security, and therefore doesn’t define as many
symptoms as Risk Profile 1.
• Risk Profile 3 is designed for use in low security environments
and defines comparatively few symptoms.
In addition to the various compliance management packs, vRe-
alize Operations allows organizations to create their own custom
5 https://www.vmware.com/security/hardening-guides.html
Risk Profile 1 is always used by default. Organizations must make a conscious decision to reduce their operational security by using Risk Profile 2 or 3.
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 5 9
compliance templates. These custom templates are useful in a vari-
ety of situations.
Suppose for instance that an organization is not subject to one of
the previously mentioned compliance mandates, but defines its own
internal security standards. A custom template would allow such an
organization to use vRealize Operations to ensure that it’s complying
with its own security guidelines.
Similarly, most healthcare providers accept credit card payments,
meaning that those organizations are subject to both the HIPAA
regulations and the PCI regulations. Such an organization could use a
custom template to include rules from both sets of regulations.
VMware has made the process of creating a custom compliance
template surprisingly easy. From the Compliance dashboard, an ad-
ministrator needs only to choose the Create option from the Actions
menu. This launches the Add Custom Compliance wizard, which
prompts the administrator to provide a name and a description
for the new template, and to then select the compliance alerts that
should be included in the template.
Although compliance alerts can be manually resolved, it’s also possi-
ble to automatically address certain compliance issues, such as com-
pliance configuration drift. Compliance configuration drift refers to a
situation in which resources must adhere to a specific configuration
in order to remain compliant, but configuration changes gradually
occur over time, causing those resources to fall into a non-com-
pliant state.
vRealize Operations allows organizations to create up to six separate compliance templates.
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 6 0
If an organization has deployed vRealize Orchestrator and installed
the vRealize Orchestrator Management Pack, vRealize Operations can
automatically detect and remediate configuration drift. This helps
not only keep your environment running butter smooth, but helps
greatly with compliance issues.
An Indispensable Tool for Every AdminThroughout its history, vRealize Operations has continuously evolved
to keep pace with the latest data center and cloud trends. For in-
stance, version 8.1, as you’ve seen, provides full support for vSphere
with Tanzu monitoring.
It’s also designed to support all the latest multi-cloud initiatives,
with native support for GCP, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon AWS.
VMware has put an incredible amount of effort into building a tool
that aligns with the way that IT pros work, even going so far as to
add support for Slack channels.
Additionally, VMware has made it far easier to create alerts, and has
revised the user interface to make navigating it a more consistent
experience.
VMware has also gone to great lengths to help admins quickly and
easily resolve any problems that might occur. vRealize Operations
integrates directly with vRealize Log Insight, and the new
Troubleshooting Workbench can be used as a tool for determining
the true root cause of any issues that are detected.
The bottom line is that whether an organization chooses to run vRe-
alize Operations on-premises or as a SaaS service, it’s an extremely
helpful tool for managing an organization’s VMware infrastructure.
You can download a free trial version from the VMware website.6
After downloading the trial, run the vSphere Optimization Assessment
(VOA) from within the product. The VOA provides comprehensive
6 https://www.vmware.com/go/vrealize-ops-dl-en
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 6 1
reports covering areas such as configuration, performance, capacity,
cost, and events. It outlines all of the things that an organization
should be doing to optimize its environment.
For those who would like to try out all of the vRealize Operations
features before downloading a trial, VMware provides a Hands-On
Lab7 that can be used to take vRealize Operations for a test-drive.
Finally, you can access the vRealize Operations Release Notes and
product Documentation.8
Don’t Wait Any LongerWe hope you enjoyed this Gorilla Guide To…® vRealize Operations
8.1. On this journey, you’ve learned about the many ways the latest
version of vRealize Operations helps you manage your environment
easier and more efficiently.
That’s never been more important, given the changing nature of IT:
The cloud, containers, AI, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are just
some of the disruptive technologies that have made it more compli-
cated to optimize operations.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Using vRealize Operations takes
the pain out these management headaches—it’s aspirin for IT ad-
mins, C-level executives, and anyone who has to ensure that the
infrastructure that undergirds your organization will function as
friction-free as possible.
Without such a comprehensive tool, things like planning for capacity
needs across distributed infrastructure, keeping costs under control,
proper troubleshooting, squeezing maximum performance out of
the environment, and making sure your hardware and software is in
7 https://www.vmware.com/go/try-vrops-hol
8 https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations-Manager/8.1/rn/vRealize-Operations-
Manager-81.html#intro
V R E A L I z E O P E R AT I O N S U S E C A S E S 6 2
compliance is an impossible task. Not to mention one that doesn’t
scale at all.
This book can serve as a great starting point on the solution to all
these challenges. vRealize Operations 8.1 is ready to serve your
needs—what are you waiting for?
ABOUT VMWARE
VMware vRealize Operations delivers self-driving IT operations
management for private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments in
a unified, AI-powered platform. Offering full-stack visibility from
physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure—including VMs and con-
tainers—to the applications they support, vRealize Operations pro-
vides continuous performance optimization, efficient capacity and
cost planning and management, app-aware intelligent remediation,
and integrated compliance. vRealize Operations is available as an
on-premises or SaaS offering.
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