Mastering Management. IT Environment. Part Three: Unify Visibility into the Virtual and Physical Data Center with a

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1 Mastering Management IT Environment Part Three: Unify Visibility into the Virtual and Physical Data Center with a

2 Unify Visibility into the Virtual and Physical Data Center with a Single Solution Technical support staffers don t want multiple tools for every environment that they manage. They don t want a tool for monitoring virtual systems, a tool for physical systems, a tool for network monitoring, a tool for storage monitoring, and still another tool for managing network configurations. They need a single, unified tool that monitors physical and virtual systems seamlessly. This article provides IT managers with advice on how to create a unified view of the data center for easier, faster, and better monitoring of complex infrastructures. The Data Center from 10,000 Feet Up Down to Ground Level: The Unified View A unified view of your data center helps technical staff from level-one console watchers all the way up to level-four architects and diagnosticians. At the 10,000-foot level, you have project managers, console watchers, and a few executives that like to peer in at the cool colors and high-level perspective of their data center. Level-one techs need to drill-down nearing ground level for a preliminary look before escalating up the chain to higherlevel tech support. In the trenches, engineers can zero in on trouble spots and remediate them. And all technical support levels can perform these functions using the same tool Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) from SolarWinds. In Figure 1, you can see the tab selections from the Orion Network Performance Monitor. This single application contains all of the information about every piece of equipment in your network and includes performance, applications, configurations, IP address allocations, alerts, top-ten resource consumers, and VMware administration. Figure 1: Orion NPM summary page

3 E X P E R T G U I D E Each major tab (Network, Applications, Configs, IP Addresses, IP SLA and Netflow) presents you with a summary page and submenu items that provide summary pages, and each summary page includes top-ten consumers, events, alerts, problems, and overall health graphs. Each item is a link that provides drill-down capability for detailed information. Today s Computing Infrastructure Data centers are no longer filled with 1U, 2U, and larger server systems. Now, technical folks must prepare themselves to support physical systems that run applications, to support physical systems that host virtual systems, and to support virtual systems that run applications. Blurring the Lines Between Physical and Virtual Is the system you last connected to physical or virtual? How do you know? Does it matter? End users might never know whether they re connected to a physical or a virtual system. When viewing computing capacity and performance data, it doesn t matter if that capacity originates from a physical or from a virtual system. Unless you drill-down on a system to the level where you can see its operating environment, you ll only see the system from a workload availability point-of-view. Looking at Workloads Not Systems Expanding on the blurring of the physical and virtual system lines is the concept of workloads. If you re only concerned with available computing capacity, the nature (physical or virtual) of that capacity fades. Data center managers are only concerned with used capacity, available capacity, and consumption rates of that capacity. Assessing a workload (application, database, service) from a performance or capacity standpoint obviates the need to know the nature (physical or virtual) of that workload. Multi-vendor monitoring allows your data center to remain dynamic, and it allows you to make your own storage choices. Storage monitoring is not only multi-vendor but also locationagnostic. Leveraged, network-attached, or local (physical or virtual), all of your storage usage is monitored, reported, and forecasted in real time. Automated Discovery of New Capacity Some storage options require you to do nothing to have those devices discovered, entered into the Profiler database, and monitored through the Storage Profiler application. Automated discovery is available for EMC, LSI NetApp Filers, VMware vcenter, and standalone VMware ESX arrays. Leveraging automated discovery keeps your data center storage device monitoring up to date; in addition, this functionality speeds implementation of the Storage Profiler for first-time adopters. Detailed Usage Analysis for Capacity Planning Do you have any idea what types of files are burning through your storage? Are there files that can be eliminated or archived? Find out quickly with Storage Profiler s detailed file usage analysis. Figure 2 shows you a partial listing of file usage details on a system running low on disk space so you can do more accurate capacity planning. Storage Keep track of all your storage devices, regardless of vendor, in one comprehensive application window. Stay current with storage health, consumption, top-ten storage consumers, alerts, and usage forecasts. Multi-Vendor Monitoring Data centers grow over time. Standards change. Requirements change. Vendors change. And, the best answer to a problem might not be a single vendor solution. To limit storage monitoring to a single vendor s products is shortsighted and not realistic for contemporary data centers, workloads, or companies. The business environment is too dynamic for a narrow viewpoint. SolarWind s storage monitoring products (Profiler product line) support multi-vendor solutions providing users with an easy way to monitor through a single application. Figure 2: Detailed file usage view through Virtual & Server Profiler PAGE 2

4 E X P E R T G U I D E Storage Mapping and Performance Dependencies Use Storage Profiler and Virtual & Server Profiler to view end-toend mapping of operating systems (OSs), applications, physical machines, and virtual machines to physical and logical storage. You also have storage performance and capacity data so that you can manage your storage usage and requirements more efficiently. Capacity Planning and Resource Management If you ve ever been involved with capacity planning, you know that it is a daunting task. But when you have a complete view of your storage and its usage, the task becomes as simple as a visual inspection. Capacity growth rate forecasts are made automatically for you. You also have access to valuable performance data that helps you make resource management decisions. For example, you discover that the frequency of your database systems access storage is sufficiently high to justify moving it up to a higher storage tier. By doing so proactively, you ve saved yourself potential outage time and can continue to meet your SLAs. Network Integrated network performance, configuration management, and capacity management complete your total data center view. The Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) gives you a NIC to NOC view of your network s attached devices. Orion NPM provides multi-vendor support for both network gear and systems / OS types. Agentless monitoring means no agents to interfere with device performance, no required extra software on any device, and no reason to touch every device on your network for periodic agent updates or patches. Configuration Management Using the Network Configuration Manager tool, download, edit, and upload configurations to your network devices, run configuration reports, view previous changes, and compare changes. You can also execute scripts against a single device or multiple devices. It only takes seconds to request a running configuration from your 12 border routers. How long does it take you now to perform these same tasks manually? Network Capacity and Usage Check current usage of your entire network on a single page. Possible? Not only is it possible but it s the standard offering from Orion NPM. You ll see consumption, available capacity, latency, errors, and the all-important quality-of-service information for all of your SNMP-enabled devices. You ll see all of your network hot spots immediately upon opening the summary page. You can click the links for each troubled device or hover over it to see a summary of its performance details. You have the information you need available to you in real time. Whether you re just checking in or responding to an alert, you ll always know how your entire network is performing at any given moment. SolarWinds offers you tools that integrate, scale, and enable tools that create a unified view of your entire network s performance through a single window. You can view online demos of SolarWind s products or download and install them into your own network for a real-time experience in your own environment. Check the extensive list of free downloadable tools including the SAN Monitor, Network Config Generator, and Network Device Monitor. Performance Monitoring Orion NPM is more than a simple network monitor that monitors all SNMP-enabled devices such as routers, switches, servers, and wireless devices. It also monitors your VMware host system performance, tracks VMotions and Cisco Nexus 1000V switches. Network performance also means watching what happens with your applications and servers through the network. Also read: Part 1 of Mastering Management for the Next-Generation IT Environment: Monitoring Critical Aspects of your Virtual Infrastructure Part 2 of Mastering Management for the Next-Generation IT Environment: Augmenting Server Monitoring with Application Performance Monitoring PAGE 3

5 IT Management Inspired by You. software to more than 97,000 customers worldwide from Fortune remove the obstacles that have become status quo in traditional enterprise software. SolarWinds products are downloadable, easy to use address users management priorities. Our online user community, thwack, is a gathering-place where tens of thousands of IT pros solve problems, share technology, and participate in product development for all of SolarWinds products. solarwinds.com 3711 S. Mo Pac Expressway, Building Two, Austin, TX T: F: SolarWinds, Inc. All rights reserved. SolarWinds, the SolarWinds logo, ipmonitor, LANsurveyor, and Orion are among the trademarks or registered trademarks of the company in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

6 We are a leading IT Solutions provider specialising in Network and Systems Management monitoring solutions for small/medium and enterprise networks. Prosperon Networks provides a range of Professional Services to support its portfolio and is recognised as an authority within the UK for designing and installing management solutions from SolarWinds, AppNeta and Netfort. Prosperon Networks markets its solutions across the UK in all major verticals. Key Facts: The Company was formed in 2006, profitable year on year and currently employs 12 staff in sales/support and administrative roles. Home Office Security Clearance to work on sensitive Government sites Platinum Partner Status for SolarWinds with SCP Accredited Engineers 1 st & 2 nd Line telephone and technical support offered to customers Classroom Training Suite, Full range of courses offered Technical Support Information: Telephone Contact Hours 9:00 17:30 Support support@prosperon.co.uk Telephone Support Number: Contact Information: Prosperon Networks Limited 55 Chapel Road Worthing, West Susses BN11 1EE Tel: International: sales@prosperon.co.uk