Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part7 - Create custom reports

In March 2020, I published a blog on how to create custom views and reports in vROps 8.x. This article explains how to create a custom storage report for Dell EMC PowerFlex using the PowerFlex Management Pack for vROps 8.x. 

Sample PowerFlex Storage Report PDF and template is available in my GitHub repo for download. You can use it as a starting point/ modify it as per requirement.

To create a new view: Dashboards - Views - Add.

Provide a name and description for the new view. Here, for example, I will create a view that shows PowerFlex Protection Domain Info.

Select List.

Select Protection Domain as subject and group it by PowerFlex Rack/ Appliance System.

Double click or drag and drop the selected metrics or properties to include in the view. In the following screenshot, I selected 4 capacity metrics to include in the view.

You can also select and change the units and transformation as per requirements. Once it is done, click Save.

Now a view is created. Similarly, you can create multiple views for the different PowerFlex resource kinds. The next step is to include this view in an existing template or in a new template. 

To create a new report template: Dashboards - Reports - Add.

• Provide a name and description for the new report template.
• From the views and dashboards, find the PowerFlex Protection Domain Info view that we created earlier, double-click or drag and drop them to the right pane. You can add multiple views to be included in this report template.
• Select PDF and CSV.
• Select all the layout options if you like to and click Save.
• Now the custom report template is created. You can select it and click Run.

Select PowerFlex and then select PowerFlex World and click ok.

The report will run in the background and will be available to download under the "Generated Reports" tab. You can select it and download the PDF or CSV file. You can even configure a schedule to generate a report and email it or save it to a location automatically based on your requirements. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Related posts

Part1: Install
Part2: Configure
Part3: Dashboards
Part4: Resource kinds and relationships
Part5: Collection interval
Part6: Create custom alerts

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x Blog Series

 

Image source: infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflex-vrops-infographics

Consolidating all my blogs on Dell EMC PowerFlex Management Pack for vROps 8.x.

Part1: Install
Part2: Configure
Part3: Dashboards
Part4: Resource kinds and relationships
Part5: Collection interval
Part6: Create custom alerts
Part7: Create custom reports

References

Dell EMC blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/p/introducing-the-powerflex-management-pack-for-vrealize-operations/

Product guide: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflexadapter-for-vrops-product-guide

VMware marketplace: https://marketplace.cloud.vmware.com/services/details/dell-emc-powerflex-management-pack-for-vrops?slug=true

Infographics: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflex-vrops-infographics

Video: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/l/videos-44/powerflex-management-pack-for-vrealize-operations-1

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part6 - Adding new symptoms and alert definitions

In my previous post, I tried to explain briefly about the alerting aspects in vROps and overall workflow of the alerting process. In this post, I will explain how to create custom symptom definitions and alert definitions based on a scenario. 

Scenario

User is running some latency-sensitive business-critical applications on the vSAN cluster. Below are the symptoms that he would like to define and alerts should be produced for the same and these should affect the "Efficiency" badge of the vSAN cluster object. 

1. Warning - when vSAN Cluster Read Latency is greater than 1 ms
2. Critical - when vSAN Cluster Read Latency is greater than 2 ms
3. Warning - when vSAN Cluster Write Latency is greater than 2 ms
4. Critical - when vSAN Cluster Write Latency is greater than 3 ms 

Sample screenshot of vSAN environment efficiency badge 

Step1: Add symptom definitions

Go to Alerts - Symptom Definitions - Click Add (+)

Select base object type: vSAN Cluster

Select the metric "Read Latency (ms) - double click on it twice so that you can define both warning and critical symptoms.

Provide symptom definition name, criticality and numeric value as required and click Save.

Now you can see the two symptoms which you have just created.

Similarly, create symptom definitions for vSAN Cluster Write Latency.

All 4 symptom definitions are created now.

Step2: Add alert definitions

Next step is to add alert definitions.

Go to Alerts - Alert Definitions - Click Add (+)

• Provide a name and description.

• Click on Base Object Type and select "vSAN Cluster"

• Click on Alert Impact and select Impact: Efficiency (this means this alert definition will affect the efficiency badge)

• Click Add Symptom Definitions (here you have to search for the symptom definitions that were created earlier and attach to this alert definition)

• Drag both symptom definitions to the right-hand side as shown in the screenshot (make sure to choose "Any" as highlighted below)

• Click Add Recommendations (here I added some sample recommendations) and click save

Similarly, create an alert definition for vSAN Cluster Write Latency alerts.

Now both alert definitions are created.

Let's verify current vSAN cluster Read/ Write latency in the dashboard.

As you can see above, Cluster I/O Write Latency is 2.67 ms which is greater than the warning threshold we defined. This means a warning alert should be produced and also should affect the efficiency badge of the vSAN Cluster object. An alert has already produced for this and can be seen in the second widget. It also shows the efficiency badge color is now yellow. If you click on the alert it will provide more details on the same.

If you browse the environment tab you can also notice that the efficiency badge of vSAN Cluster has turned to yellow.

Please feel free to share if this was useful. Cheers!

Related posts

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part5 - Alerting

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part4 - High availability

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part3 - Rightsizing

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part2 - Configure vCenter adapter and dashboards overview

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part1 - Installation

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part5 - Alerting

Alerting is a very important aspect of infrastructure monitoring. vROps has very powerful alerting capabilities. It might look a bit complicated for the first time. A good understanding of symptoms, alert definitions, badges, notification rules, etc. are required to effectively utilize the maximum functionality/ capabilities of vROps. In this post, I will try to explain all these alert settings. Before getting into the configurations, first, let's have a look at objects and object types in vROps.

Objects and object types

As you can see in the screenshot above there are many objects of type "Datastore". All these objects/ object types have "Metrics" and "Properties". Click on the "Show Detail" icon as shown below to view more details of the selected object.

Metrics and Properties

"Metrics" and "Properties" of the object "vol03" is shown below.

Symptom definitions and alert definitions

Based on the value of metrics/ property you can define symptoms with criticality Info, warning, critical, etc. Using symptom definitions alert definitions can be created and this generates corresponding alerts and will directly affect the badges associated with the object. Now let's have a look at some of the symptom definitions and alert definitions that are pre-defined in vROps for the "vCenter Adapter". Here I am taking an example of object type "Datastore".

Examples: Symptom definition

Select a symptom definition and click edit.

As you can see, this symptom definition produces a warning alert when any datastore "capacity used %" is greater than 90.

Another symptom definition is given below where an info alert will be generated when space remaining on the datastore is 0.

Example: Alert definition

As shown in the screenshot below there are few pre-defined alert definitions for object type "datastore". 

Let's select one alert definition.

Now, if you would like to forward these alerts to an email address or an SNMP trap destination, you will need to configure two things.

1. Outbound instance
2. Alert notification rules

Add outbound instance

I will be configuring an SNMP trap destination. Go to Administration - Management - Outbound settings - click on the + icon. Provide necessary details and test to ensure the connection is successful.

Add alert notification rule

By default, no notification rules are available in vROps. User has to create new rules as per the requirement. Go to Alerts - Alert settings - Notification settings - click on the + icon and provide necessary configuration details. As an example, I will configure alert notification rule to forward all datastore related alerts to an SNMP trap destination.

The above rule will forward all the alerts that impact health, risk, and efficiency badges of datastore object to the configured SNMP trap destination.

Summary of the alerting process in vROps

Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Related posts

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part6 - Adding new symptoms and alert definitions

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part4 - High availability

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part3 - Rightsizing

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part2 - Configure vCenter adapter and dashboards overview

vRealize Operations Manager 7.5 - Part1 - Installation