Using a Help Desk Dashboard to Simplify Operations With vRealize Operations Manager!

This post is a resultant of our VMworld 2015 content which we ( me and Iwan Rahabok) have been brewing since the mid of this year. Without taking any credit, I must say that all the content which we presented in various events such as architect bootcamps, VMworld and recently at the VMware APJ Tech Summit was the brainchild of my awesome buddy & colleague Iwan Rahabok.

Post these events, a lot of people have reached out to help them with development of dashboards which can help them effectively use vRealize Operations in there environments. With this post I would share a basic dashboard which can help you with day 2 day operations especially around performance troubleshooting in an organized manner.

We call it the help desk dashboard which can be ideally used by your level 1 team to quickly understand the infrastructure areas which could be a performance bottleneck for a virtual machine.

Let me quickly show you the dashboard and then I will help you build this in your vROps instance:

It's a simple yet effective dashboard and here are a few USE CASES where you can use the dashboard:-

Use Case 1 -  Quickly search for an affected VM & look at the Key Performance Indicators to get a direction for further troubleshooting (CPU, RAM, DISK, NETWORK etc.)

Use Case 2 - Quickly review the utilization of a VM for a past few days to months in case you have a request for resource addition such as CPU or Memory expansion.

Use Case 3 - This can also help the VM Right-Sizing Efforts as you can easily pull out the statistics around CPU or RAM utilization going back in Time and share the same with the app owners to get approvals on right-sizing.

Here are the key metrics which can be viewed with a click of a button in this dashboard:-

• CPU Usage %
• CPU Contention %
• Memory Usage %
• Memory Contention %
• Network Workload %
• Virtual Disk Latency (ms) aggregate for all disks in the VM

Well, if this interests you then let's see how we can get this dashboard. To begin with go ahead and download the following file by clicking on the link below. This is the original export of the dashboard which we will import later:-

Click here - HELPDESK-DASHBOARD EXPORT


Let's start building the dashboard now:-

1- Login to vRealize Operations with a user who has privileges to create a new dashboard.

2- Click on the Content tab and click on Manage Metric Config in the inventory window (you need vROps 6.0.1 or later versions for you to see this option. 

3- Under Manage Metric Config, click on ResKndMetric directory and click on the + Sign to create a new XML named - vmperf.xml

Paste the following xml code in blue color on the right pane and click on Save. A screenshot follows to guide you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<AdapterKinds>
   <AdapterKind adapterKindKey="VMWARE">
      <ResourceKind resourceKindKey="VirtualMachine">
         <Metric attrkey="cpu|usage_average" label="" unit="%" yellow="85" orange="90" red="95" />
         <Metric attrkey="cpu|capacity_contentionPct" label="" unit="%" yellow="15" orange="20" red="30" />

         <Metric attrkey="mem|usage_average" label="" unit="%" yellow="85" orange="90" red="95" />
         <Metric attrkey="mem|host_contentionPct" label="" unit="%" yellow="15" orange="20" red="30" />

         <Metric attrkey="net|workload" label="" unit="%" yellow="85" orange="90" red="95" />
         <Metric attrkey="virtualDisk:Aggregate of all instances|totalLatency" label="" unit="ms" yellow="20" orange="30" red="40" />
         <Metric attrkey="virtualDisk:Aggregate of all instances|commandsAveraged_average" label="" unit="IOPS" yellow="10000" orange="30000" red="40000" />
         <Metric attrkey="diskspace|snapshot" label="" unit="" yellow="1" orange="2" red="3" />
      </ResourceKind>
   </AdapterKind>
   <AdapterKind adapterKindKey="bbb">
   </AdapterKind>
</AdapterKinds>

4- Now let's import the dashboard file which we downloaded before. Click on Content -> Dashboards - > Settings Button -> Import Dashboards. 

5- Select the HELPDESKDB.json file you downloaded earlier and click on OK to import the dashboard.

The above step would create the dashboard for you. Let us quickly share the dashboard as well.


6- Under the Dashboards Tab, Click on the settings button again and click on Share Dashboards.

7 - Now select the newly created HELPDESK Dashboard and drag & drop it on the groups with whom you want to share the same.

By now, you should have your dashboard ready to use. Please do let me know as to how you are using this dashboard in your environment in the comments sections..

Till then.. Do not forget to SHARE & SPREAD THE KNOWLEDGE!! 

Using Custom Reports To Publish Dashboards in vRealize Operations 6.1

As I am exploring vRealize Operations 6.1, I am unearthing the goodness of the new features which are introduced with this release. One of the biggest feature for me which the product delivers now is the new enhanced reporting feature. This reporting feature allows you to import a Custom Dashboard into a report. Yes you read it right!!

This was the single biggest ask by many of my customers for whom, I would create a custom dashboard. While the dashboards are priceless from a perspective of real time monitoring with the widgets such as Heat-maps, Health Widgets etc, the customers always wanted to have a feature where in they could automatically send out a report with the dashboard included to higher management or application users via email.

While the reporting engine in vRealize Operations 6.0.x is by far amazing, with 6.1 the solution also allows you to import a Dashboard into a Custom Report as publish them as reports. 

Without further-ado let's have a quick look as to how you can do this:

1- Let's say this is the dashboard which you want to publish in a Custom Report. This is a cluster capacity dashboard.

2- Click on Content - > Reports to open the report engine.

3- Click on the "+" sign under Report Templates to add a new Report.

4- Provide a Name and Description to begin with.

5- As a next step, you have the option to either add a VIEW or a DASHBOARD to the Report. Here is a drop-down which shows both the options.

6- Select Dashboard and now you will be able to see all the dashboards which you have in your vROps instance under Data Type. You can see the Cluster Capacity Dashboard here.

7- You need to DRAG & DROP this dashboard on the right pane to incorporate the same in the report.

8- On the next screen you have the option of selecting the report formats and the layout.

8- Finally you can customize the layout by adding images, footers etc and then save the report template.

9- You can see the new report we just created. Highlight the same an click on RUN button to execute the report.

10- You need to now select the Object on which you have to run the report. In this case, it would be a cluster and click on OK for the report to execute.

11- Once the report is processed, click on the Generated Reports Tab, and then click on the PDF link to down the report.

12- Once you open the PDF, you will see the cluster capacity dashboard in the report.

And that's it! You can schedule this report and send out to recipients automatically via email, or also dump it on a file share if you wish to.

Hope this helps you to use this FANTASTIC feature of custom reporting to meet the reporting needs of your business.

Do not forget to SHARE & SPREAD THE KNOWLEDGE!!