Sunday, November 8, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part4 - Resource kinds and relationships

In this post, we will take a look at the different resource kinds that are part of the Dell EMC PowerFlex Management Pack. Following is a very high-level logical representation of the PowerFlex Adapter resource kinds and their relationships:


Go to Environment - All objects - PowerFlex Adapter


You can also get a PowerFlex system level view in vROps using the PowerFlex rack/ appliance system resource kind. This system view is making use of the system name field that we provided while configuring each PowerFlex Adapter instance type. The system name is used to group all the logical components of one PowerFlex system. 


This view provides end-to-end visibility of the PowerFlex infrastructure components that will be useful to understand the relationship between different layers of the stack. This will be also helpful to identify and troubleshoot in case of issues.

Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Related posts


Part1 - Install
Part2 - Configure
Part3 - Dashboards


Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part3 - Dashboards

We have covered the installation and configuration of the PowerFlex Management Pack in the previous posts. In this post, we will have a look at the different dashboards that are part of the MP. Following are the 13 dashboards you will get after installing the MP:

Overview
  • PowerFlex System Overview
PowerFlex Manager
  • PowerFlex Manager Details
Management Controller 
  • PowerFlex Management Controller
Compute
  • PowerFlex ESXi Cluster Usage
  • PowerFlex ESXi Host Usage
  • PowerFlex SVM Utilization
Networking
  • PowerFlex Networking Environment
  • PowerFlex Networking Performance
Storage
  • PowerFlex Summary
  • PowerFlex Details
  • PowerFlex Replication Details
Server Hardware
  • PowerFlex Node Summary
  • PowerFlex Node Details

Now, let's have a quick look at some of these dashboards and their functionality.

PowerFlex Node Summary


This dashboard shows the health of all PowerFlex nodes being monitored by the MP. You can see the classification of nodes as Compute Only, Storage Only, Hyperconverged, and Management Controller along with a relationship between a node and its corresponding hardware components.


PowerFlex Summary


This dashboard shows the health status of all the logical components of the PowerFlex storage system. It also has a parent-child relationship between different objects of the storage system. You can also see widgets for capacity usage trend forecasting, alerts, top storage pools by capacity usage, top volumes by size, etc.


PowerFlex Details


This dashboard shows all PowerFlex storage performance KPIs like IOPS, Bandwidth, Latency, etc.


PowerFlex Networking Environment


You can see the health status of Cisco networking components and the relationship between network interfaces, nodes, switch ports, VLANs, port-channels, etc.


PowerFlex Networking Performance


This dashboard shows the switch and switch port KPIs like Throughout, Errors, Packet discards, etc.


PowerFlex Manager


You can see the service deployment details like service health, RCM compliance status, deployment status, etc. in this dashboard.


Hope it was useful. Cheers!

References


Monday, November 2, 2020

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

Friday, October 30, 2020

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


Friday, October 23, 2020

VMware PowerCLI 101 - part8 - Working with vSAN

This article explains how to work with vSAN resources using PowerCLI. 

Note I am using the following versions:
PowerShell: 5.1.14393.3866
VMware PowerCLI: 12.1.0.17009493


Connect to vCenter:
Connect-VIServer <IP of vCenter server>

List all vSAN get cmdlets:
Get-Command Get-Vsan*


vSAN runtime info:
$c = Get-Cluster Cluster01
Get-VsanRuntimeInfo -Cluster $c


vSAN space usage:
Get-VsanSpaceUsage


vSAN cluster configuration:
Get-VsanClusterConfiguration


vSAN disk details:
Get-VsanDisk


View all properties of a disk:
(Get-VsanDisk)[31] | select *


View disk vendor, model, firmware revision, physical location, operational state:
(Get-VsanDisk)[31].ExtensionData


 vSAN disk group details:
Get-VsanDiskGroup


Get all properties of a disk group:

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Monitoring Tanzu Kubernetes cluster using Prometheus and Grafana

Updated: June 26, 2021

In this post, we will see how to deploy Prometheus and Grafana using Helm and Prometheus Operator to monitor Tanzu Kubernetes clusters. 


Following is my Tanzu K8s cluster setup:


Install Helm 3

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 > get_helm.sh
chmod 700 get_helm.sh
./get_helm.sh

Install Prometheus Operator using Helm

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update
helm install pro-mon -n pro-mon prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack


Verify all


Port forward Grafana to 3000 to access the dashboards


Login to Grafana using a web browser at localhost:3000/login .

The default username is "admin" and the password is "prom-operator".


Go to Dashboards - Manage to view/ access the list of out-of-the-box K8s dashboards. The following are some of the sample dashboards.


Kubernetes | Compute Resources | Namespace (Pods)


Kubernetes | Networking | Namespace (Pods)


Kubernetes | API server


This is not limited to just Tanzu K8s clusters. You can also monitor OpenShift and Upstream K8s clusters following this method. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

References


https://github.com/prometheus-community/helm-charts/tree/main/charts/kube-prometheus-stack
[www.bogotobogo.com] Docker_Kubernetes_Prometheus_Deploy_using_Helm_and_Prometheus_Operator