Today VMware released Log Insight (LI) version 3.3 (Log Insight 3.3). There are lots of new features in both the server and the agent. For full details of LI 3.3 check out Steve Flanders’ blog who is the only one who can do it justice – LI 3.3 SFlanders. In concert with the LI 3.3 release I have published a new version of the VMAX Content Pack – 3.0. I have a number of blog entries that cover what the VMAX CP is in general (Log Insight Blog Entries), so I’m not going to rehash it here. Instead I’m going to quickly go through the few changes I made to latest VMAX CP.
First, recall that the content packs are published in the Marketplace within Log Insight so you don’t need to download it separately (although you can get it in the VMware Cloud Marketplace if the LI instance does not have external access).
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Once installed you can view the VMAX CP which includes a link to the setup instructions (VMAX CP whitepaper).
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Now to the changes. The major update I did was to add a new dashboard for VMware Virtual Volumes (VVols). While support for VVols on the VMAX3 is still under direct availability, it will be GA shortly so I wanted to be sure that the content pack supported it before that time. Here is a view of that dashboard and its 3 widgets:
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To support the new dashboard I added 2 new user fields, one to categorize a storage container, and the other to reflect the percent that storage container is filled:
- emc_vmax_scontainer
- emc_vmax_scontainer_percent
I also made various updates to the other dashboards to take advantage of the new table-type widget which is used in the VVol dashboard above. For instance, in the Overview dashboard I converted the All configuration changes widget to a table widget:
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In many cases the table widget is just easier to navigate, though not as colorful.
Finally, I made performance enhancements to the CP which should help return queries more quickly.
I do want to mention the new VMware licensing model for Log Insight. VMware is now giving away 25 OSI Log Insight licenses with every vCenter:
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Now perhaps you already use a competitor’s product and have no interest at all in using VMware’s log aggregator; but if you don’t or have not even looked at log aggregators you can now use this one for free. And if you are going to use it and happen to own one of our VMAX arrays, feel free to install the latest VMAX Content Pack which will help organize those EMC logs. After all free is good.
