Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part2 - Configure

In this post, I will explain how to configure the PowerFlex Management Pack for vROps. 

Before getting into the configuration, I would like to provide a high-level view of my lab setup. I have two separate PowerFlex rack systems that I will be monitoring using the management pack. The two systems are named RAMS and VIKINGS and have the following components.

The PowerFlex Management Pack supports the following 4 instance types:

• PowerFlex Networking - queries and collects networking details from Cisco switches
• PowerFlex Gateway - queries and collects storage details from PowerFlex Gateway
• PowerFlex Nodes - queries and collects server hardware health details from iDRACs
• PowerFlex Manager - queries and collects service deployment details from PowerFlex Manager

Note: The default collection interval for all PowerFlex Adapter instance types is set to 5 minutes.

I have already configured the controller VCSA and customer VCSA of both (RAMS and VIKINGS) clusters as shown below. This makes use of the native vSphere Adapter and vSAN Adapter present in vROps.

Note: The PowerFlex MP is already installed in vROps. Please see the previous post on how to install it.

Now we can start adding required accounts for the PowerFlex Adapter to connect to the different REST endpoints.

PowerFlex Networking

Click add account.

Select the PowerFlex Adapter.

Let's configure the account for monitoring Cisco TOR switches of the RAMS cluster.

Provide the following details:

• Name
• Management IP address of Cisco TOR switches

Select the instance type as "PowerFlex Networking" and provide a system name. 
In this case, these TOR switches are part of RAMS. So I have given the system name as RAMS.

Add a new credential. Select the credential kind as "PowerFlex Networking Adapter Credentials". 

Provide a credential name, username and password. Click OK.

Click VALIDATE CONNECTION.

If everything is fine, you will get a test connection successful message. Click OK.

Click ADD to save the account. You will see the account we just created under the other accounts page.
Initially, the status will be warning but it will turn to OK in few seconds.

Note: In the product guide it is recommended to configure not more than 40 Cisco switches in one PowerFlex Networking instance. So, if you have 80 switches in your PowerFlex system, you will need to configure 2 PowerFlex Networking instances where each instance will connect/ query/ collect details from 40 switches.

PowerFlex Gateway

PowerFlex Nodes

Make sure to provide the PowerFlex Management Controller vCenter details in the advanced settings. If you have configured the native adapter with vCenter IP address, then you have to provide the IP address in the advanced settings. In this case, I have configured the native adapter with the vCenter hostname/ FQDN, so in the advanced settings, I have provided the same FQDN. This field will be used to identify and classify the PowerFlex Management Controller nodes.

Note: In the product guide it is recommended to configure 30 iDRACs or less in one PowerFlex Node instance. So, if you have 120 nodes in your PowerFlex system, you will need to configure 4 PowerFlex Node instances where each instance will connect/ query/ collect details from 30 iDRACs.

PowerFlex Manager

Note: While adding the credentials for the PowerFlex Manager, it is mandatory to provide the PowerFlex Manager Domain Name. VXFMLOCAL is the domain name for the default admin user.

Verify the status of all accounts.

Now we have finished creating all the required accounts to monitor the RAMS system. Similarly, you can add multiple PowerFlex systems and monitor them using the management pack. In my case, I have one more PowerFlex system named VIKINGS and I have added all the required accounts as given in the following screenshot. As you can see below, for the VIKINGS system I have configured seperate instances for CO, SO, and Controller nodes. This is because the iDRAC credentials for CO, SO, and Controller nodes are different. 

In the dashboards section, you can see all the 13 dashboards. Depending on the number of components/ size of the PowerFlex system, it may take 15-20 minutes for the data to get populated in the respective dashboards. 

In the next part, we will go through the different dashboards and other capabilities of the management pack. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

References

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

PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex

PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part1 - Install

Dell EMC has recently released a vROps management pack for PowerFlex. It is a monitoring and alerting solution that provides extensive visibility into PowerFlex systems using vROps. The management pack collects key metrics for PowerFlex storage, networking, compute, and server hardware and ingests into vROps. The solution is available to all PowerFlex rack and appliance customers free of cost. This brings additional value to the IT operations and life cycle management functionality delivered by PowerFlex Manager.

Now, let's start with installation of the management pack. The steps are same for vROps 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2.

Administration - Solutions - Repository - Add/ Upgrade

Browse and select the PAK file and click upload.

Click next.

Accept the EULA and click next.

Click finish.

The management pack is now installed and it will be listed in the repository.

Verify the contents of the management pack by selecting view content.

Verify the 13 dashboards.
Note: If any of the dashboards are missing, then try to reinstall the management pack.

In the next part, we will go through the adapter instance configurations. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Related posts

Part2 - Configure
Part3 - Dashboards
Part4 - Resource kinds and relationships

References

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

PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex

PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

vRealize Operations Manager 8 - Custom views and reports

vROps has a number of inbuilt views and reports templates. In this post, I will explain how to create custom views and reports. 

To create a new view: Dashboards - Views - New view

Provide a name and description for the new view. Here, for example, I will create a view that shows datastore write performance stats.

Select List.

Select Datastore as subject and group it by cluster compute resource.

Drag and drop the selected metrics or properties to include in the view.

In the following screenshot, I selected a property "Is Local" and included in the view.

Added another property "Type" to the view.

Similarly, I added some metrics like Write IOPS, Latency and Throughout to the view.

I selected "Maximum" from transformation to get the peak value of the selected metrics.

In the below screenshot, you can see I selected "Maximum" and "Average" transformation for Write IOPS, Latency and Throughput metrics. You can also select the units as per your requirement. Here, I selected "us" for latency and "MBps" for throughput.

Click Save. 

Similarly, I created three custom views that show:

• "Datastore read performance stats"
• "Datastore write performance stats" 
• "Datastore capacity usage"

To create a new report template: Dashboards - Reports - New template

Provide a name and description for the new report template.

From the views and dashboards, find the three custom datastore views that we created earlier, drag and drop them to the right pane as shown below.

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 vSpehre Hosts and Clusters and then select vSphere 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

vROps 7.5 blog series

VMware PowerCLI 101 - part7 - Working with vROps

This article explains how to work with vROps resources using PowerCLI. The following diagram shows the relationship between adapters, resource kinds, and resources. There can be multiple adapters installed on the vROps instance. Each adapter kind will have multiple resource kinds and each resource kind will have multiple resources. And each resource will have its own badges and badge scores.

Note I am using the following versions:
PowerShell: 5.1.14393.3383
VMware PowerCLI: 11.3.0.13990089
vROps: 7.0

Connect to vROps:
Connect-OMServer <IP of vROps>

Get the list of all installed adapters:
Get-OMResource | select AdapterKind -Unique

Get all resource kinds of a specific adapter:
Get-OMResource -AdapterKind VMWARE | select ResourceKind -Unique

Get the list of resources of a specific resource kind:
Get-OMResource -ResourceKind Datacenter

Another example:
Get-OMResource -ResourceKind ClusterComputeResource

Get details of a specific resource:
Get-OMResource -Name Cluster01 | select *

Get badge details of a selected resource:
(Get-OMResource -Name Cluster01).ExtensionData.Badges

List all resources of an adapter kind where health is not green:
Get-OMResource -AdapterKind VMWARE | select AdapterKind,ResourceKind,Name,Health,State,Status | where health -ne Green | ft

Get the list all objects of an adapter kind that have collection issues:
Get-OMResource -AdapterKind VMWARE | select AdapterKind,ResourceKind,Name,Health,State,Status | where {($_.Status -ne "DataReceiving") -or ($_.State -ne "Started")} | ft

Get the list of all active critical alerts from a specific adapter type:
Get-OMResource -AdapterKind VMWARE | Get-OMAlert -Criticality Critical -Status Active

Hope it was helpful. Cheers!

Related posts

VMware PowerCLI 101 Blog Series