Reviews

reviews of virtualization products

Runecast Analyzer makes hardware checking against the VMware HCL easy

Runecast Analyzer is a tool that helps VMware administrators to proactive manage there vSphere environment. It discovers potential risks in the VMware environment before they can cause a major outage. It uses best practices, security hardening guides (VMware, DISA STIG, PCI-DSS v3.2.1 and HIPAA) and known issues found in the VMware Knowledge Base to protect the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC).  Runecast Analyzer supports the following VMware products:

  • VMware vSphere
  • VMware vSAN
  • VMware NSX-V
  • VMware Horizon

Runecast Analyzer introduced a new feature called “Automated VMware HCL” and “ESXi Compatibility Simulation“. The “Automated VMware HCL” feature checks the VMware ESXi host hardware, driver and firmware versions against the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). The VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) lists all the physical hardware components, driver and firmware versions that are supported by VMware. Keeping the hardware aligned with the VMware HCL is essential for a healthy, stable and supported VMware environment but can be difficult to perform. For example see the blog post below how to identify a networkcard and the supported driver.

Identify NIC driver and supported driver version for ESXi server

 

Within the “Automated VMware HCL” feature you can enable “ESXi Comparability Simulation“. ESXi comparability simulation checks the existing hardware against a newer VMware ESXi version before upgrading to this new version so you can verify if the hardware, driver and firmware levels are supported.

Automated Hardware Compatibility

After deploying the Runecast Analyzer appliance and connecting to one or more vCenter Servers, the first scan can be performed by clicking on the purple “Analyze Now” button. When the scan is completed select “HW Compatibility” on the left menu bar. By default all ESXi hosts are listed. In the action pane you can specify a specific clusters or one or more host(s).

The screenshot shows the host, ESXi release, hardware summary and the compatible status of the BIOS and I/O devices. The BIOS and I/O Devices are red in this example which means they need attention. All the hardware, firmware and driver  results can be exported to a CSV file. Per ESXi host you can drill down to the server hardware.

The BIOS state needs an update, it’s reported as possible incompatibility “Not Found” in the HCL Data field. When clicking on the “HCL online” button we’ve got redirected to the VMware Compatibility List (HCL).

The VMware HCL tells that the BIOS level that matches is version 1.2. After the BIOS view we go to the I/O devices by clicking on the I/O Devices tab

The Intel I350 Gigabit and the Samsung NVMe SSD Controller needs attention. When looking at the Intel I350 in the HCL we see that the the firmware level is okay and that the installed driver version is 0.1.1.0 is old. The HCL reports that version 1.4.1 is needed.

ESXi Compatibility Simulation

With the Hardware Compatibility Overview there is another feature called “ESXi Compatibility Simulation“.  ESXi Compatibility Simulation checks the existing hardware against a newer VMware ESXi version before upgrading to this new version so you can verify if the hardware, driver and firmware levels are supported.

After turning on the ESXi Compatibility Simulation feature and selecting the ESXi version to upgrade to you can fire the simulation. In this environment I want to upgrade to ESXi 6.7 U2 and it shows that the BIOS not compatible.

Conclusion

It can be difficult and time consuming for VMware admins to check if the server hardware is aligned with the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for maintaining a healthy, stable and supported environment. Runecast Analyzer makes this very easy and fast by performing a simple scan and see if the hardware of the VMware environment is complaint with the VMware HCL.

Another great feature is the ESXi Compatibility Simulation. Again with a simple scan you check if the hardware is compatible against a newer version of ESXi before actually upgrading to this version. The Automated Hardware Compatibility and ESXi Compatibility Simulation are great new features that saves a lot of value time investigating if the VMware environment is compliant.

You can download a 30 day full trial version of Runecast Analyzer and try it yourself.

 

Monitor vSAN with ControlUp

One of the new enhancements of ControlUp 7.3 is vSAN monitoring support. ControlUp will detect the vSAN cluster(s), objects and displays real-time vSAN specific metrics and metadata. In this blog post I highlight the features of the new vSAN integration in ControlUp 7.3.

Installation

The vSAN cluster is automatically recognized by ControlUp when the following requirements are met:

  • PowerShell minimum Version 5.0
  • VMware PowerCLI 10.1.1.x
  • .NET framework version 4.5
  • vSAN Performance service should be turned on on the cluster
  • The user account configured for the hypervisor connection requires the “storage.View” permission.

Running ControlUp is easy, no installation is needed, simple execute a single executable (ControlUpConsole.exe). After starting ControlUp, add the vCenter server and the vSAN cluster(s) are automatically recognized. When clicking on the vSAN cluster you see real-time metadata and performance metrics.

Views

There are several preset views available with vSAN metrics such as:

  • vSAN Performance. Includes vSAN performance metrics such as IOPS, latency, cache and buffers.
  • vSAN Health. Includes the vSAN health checks
  • vSAN Host Network. Includes vSAN network I/O and packet loss metrics.

You can easily switch between predefined views in the “Colum Preset”. Here is an overview of vSAN metrics used by ControlUp:

Datastores: Name, Type, Capacity, Read/Write IOPS, Read/Write Rate, Read/Write Latency, Compression, Capacity Deduplication, Congestion, Outstanding IO, Disk Configuration, Total Used Capacity, Total Used – Physically Written, Total Used – VM Overreserved, Total Used – System Overhead, vSAN Free Capacity, vSAN Health, vSAN Cluster Health, vSAN Network Health, vSAN Physical Disk Health, vSAN Data Health, vSAN Limits Health, vSAN Hardware Compatibility Health, vSAN Performance Service Health, vSAN Build Recommendation, vSAN Online Health.
Datastores on Hosts: Name, Type, Capacity, Read/Write IOPS, Read/Write Rate, Read/Write Latency, Compression, Capacity Deduplication, Congestion, Outstanding IO, Local Client Cache Hit IOPS, Local Client Cache Hit Rate, vSAN Max Read Cache Read Latency, vSAN Max Write Buffer Write Latency, vSAN Max Read Cache Write Latency, vSAN Max Write Buffer Read Latency, vSAN Min Read Cache Hit Rate, vSAN Write Buffer Min Free Percentage, vSAN Host Network Inbound/Outbound I/O Throughput, vSAN Host Network Inbound/Outbound Packets Per Second, vSAN Host Network Inbound/Outbound Packet Loss Rate

When navigating you see all those metrics available on the vSAN cluster, vSAN datastores on hosts, virtual disks and vSAN Host network utilization views. You can easily drill down by double clicking from the vSAN datastore to the diskgroup(s) on each ESXi host and then drill down to the the virtual disk(s). From the virtual disk(s) you can drill down to the Windows process.

Example: Find the root cause of high IOPS load on the vSAN cluster.

In the following example we will identify a Windows process that is causing high IOPS stress on the vSAN cluster. We drill down from the vSAN cluster to the vSAN diskgroup of the ESXi host to the virtual disk to the process level in the VM to find the root cause of the high IOPS.

  • In the vSAN Performance view we see the stress level has changed and a high IOPS load.

  • In the IOPS we see that the threshold of 2000 is crossed. This threshold is default and can be adjusted. The Virtual Expert suggest to navigate to the “Datastore on Hosts (IOPS detailed View).

  • When double clicking on the “Datastore on Host” we see that “esxin04.lab.local” is generating the IOPS load.

  • The vSAN diskgroup of the “esxin04.lab.local” host has a virtual disk that belongs to the “ControlUp-vSAN-Test” VM that is causing the high IOPS load.

  • When double clicking on the virtual disk we go the the “Processes” view and see that “diskspd.exe” process is causing the high IOPS load.

  • Optional: Right click on the process and select kill to end the “diskspd.exe” process. This stops the IOPS load on the vSAN cluster.

This example shows how easy it is to identify what process is causing stress on the vSAN cluster.

Alerting and reporting

For alerting you can add triggers in ControlUp to notify you when something happens on the vSAN cluster such as a change in the stress level for a period of time.

When using the triggers you’re able to start investigating it right away when something happening on the vSAN cluster. All the vSAN data is transferred to ControlUp Insight for historical reporting and analytics. This is great for analyzing data and trends over time and can be very useful when investigate issues and understanding what is going on you’re environment.

Conclusion

ControlUp is easy to set-up and great for fast troubleshooting. In version 7.3 is vSAN support added. As shown in the this blog post with a couple of double clicks you’re able to perform a root cause analysis and find what process is causing the high IOPS on the vSAN.

There is a free trail available. Give it a try here: link

Review NAKIVO Backup & Replication – Multi-Tenancy, licensing and conclusion

In the last part of the NAKIVO Backup & Replication review I highlight the Multi-Tenancy option, licensing and the final conclusion.

Multi-Tenancy and branding

NAKIVO supports multi-tenancy to deliver Backup-as-a-Service (BAAS) and Disaster-Recovery as a Service (DRaas). The tenants are isolated from each other and cannot access other tenants. Each tenant can access their own environment through  a self-service portal and perform all data protection of recovery tasks.

For each tenant custom branding can be used.

A single copy of NAKIVO can create and manage up to 1000 tenants providing a single pane of glass. The multi-tenancy option is available in the Enterprise Essentials en Enterprise license.

Licensing

The following licensing options are available for NAKIVO Backup and Replication for VMware and Hyper-V.

Number of licenses available per  organization Support Price (€) per socket Description
Basic 4 1 year included 84 Basic backup
PRO Essentials From 2 to 6 1 year included 169 Basic backup including backup copy and Backup to Cloud services for small environments up to 6 socket licenses.
Enterprise Essentials From 2 to 6 1 year included 249 All the backup options are included such as Disaster Recovery and Multi-Tenancy (BAAS and DRaaS) for small environments up to 6 socket licenses..
Pro Unlimited 1 year included 329 Same as the Pro Essentials edition with unlimited licenses.
Enterprise Unlimited 1 year included Request price Same as the Enterprise Essentials edition with unlimited licenses.

More information about the editions, options and pricing can be found here, link.

Another licensing option is the NAKIVO Cloud Provider Edition for cloud providers who host multiple customers. With this edition you can buy a pool of licenses per Virtual Machine. All the license are pooled together and can be used over the tenants.

Final conclusion

In  the last months I did multiple blog posts about NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 and v8. I highlighted the following topics:

  • Review NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 released, link
  • Installation and basic configuration, link
  • Backup and Recovery, link
  • Replication, link
  • Multi-Tenancy, editions and licensing and the final conclusion (this post).

The installation, configuration and management of NAKIVO Backup & Replication is very simple. I really like the the Virtual Appliance option and the possibility to install NAKIVO B&R on a NAS device. This saves licensing and hardware costs. The management is done by web browser so no extra software is needed to install.

The backup, restore and replication jobs are wizard based. Within a couple of minutes the configuration is done. There a multiple ways to recover data such as individual files, objects such as Active Directory and SQL, complete VMs and recover VMs cross platform.

Replication of VMs can be done for Disaster Recovery. In version 8 a new feature is added called “Site Recovery”. With this new feature you build automated recovery workflows with one-click failover, failback, and datacenter migration. The recovery workflows can be tested non-disruptive to make sure you meet the RTOs.

For cloud providers who offers Backup-as-a-Service (BAAS) and Disaster-Recovery as a Service (DRaas) there is a multi-tenancy option with custom branding for each tenant. Per VM licensing is available for cloud providers.

And as final the licensing and pricing of NAKIVO is very competitive and attractive when comparing them to other data protection solutions.

In short my final conclusion about NAKIVO Backup and Replication: Simple, fast, lots of great features and competitive pricing.

Next week VMworld Europe 2018 in Barcelona will start. NAKIVO will show at VMworld some new enhancements that will be available in NAKIVO Backup & Replication v8.1.

More information about NAKIVO can be found here: link