ESA 4.3 – vROps 6.6, new VMAX metrics

EMC Storage Analytics 4.3 is now available for download. You can find the documentation and binary here. Probably the most important aspect of this release, putting my bias aside, is that it supports vRealize Operations version 6.6. Before I talk about that, here is the full list of changes, courtesy of an RN screenshot.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to preview vROps 6.6 you are in for a bit of a surprise, if not confusion 🙂 The user interface has been revamped to align with products such as VMware Log Insight which already have the newer interface in version 4.5. Below I have the old and the new login for vROps.

Once you’re in, it is a little more dramatic.

Again if you already use Log Insight, this all looks familiar. If not, plan some time to get to know the new interface. The focus has changed from a top-tab look, to a side-tab look. For instance here are how the dashboards look:

There is even a direct interface with Log Insight now that they have the same GUI look and feel:

In the end I think you’ll find it an improvement, particularly if you are using multiple vRealize products. Personally I find it much cleaner. But onto VMAX feature improvements!

Courtesy of a customer request (as I’ve noted we are always open to enhancements), we have some new objects/metrics in this release for VMAX. The two new objects are back-end directors and back-end ports. You can find these objects from a topology standpoint directly off the array. You can then drill-down into the BE ports.

The metrics for both BE director and BE port are the same, save for an extra Response Time(ms) metric for the port. I’ve pulled them here from the VMAX Topology dashboard (VMAX Metrics has been updated, too).

By the way, when we added the Busy(%) metric to the BE objects, we also added it to our Front-end director and port (another customer request) along with Queue Depth Utilization(%):

Finally, on the storage group side we’ve added the following metrics:

• Response Time(ms)
• Host Read/sec
• Host Writes/sec
• Hit(%)
• Miss(%)

With the added objects and metrics, I’ve updated the VMAX Overview dashboard. Remember all the dashboards are fully customizable so if you don’t like what we’ve given to you, or it doesn’t suit your needs, change away. Just be sure to clone the dashboard first so you don’t lose it on upgrade.

Talk to you tomorrow…

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