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Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference 2015 WPC is the largest event for Microsoft partners When it comes to meeting the right people in the right place, bigger is better. The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) brings together over 15,000 attendees … Continue reading
As a Microsoft Evangelist at Nutanix, I am always asked….”How would you monitor your Nutanix Infrastructure and can I use System Center suite. And my answer always is, “YES, with SCOM”….What is SCOM you ask?
System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) is designed to be a monitoring tool for the datacenter. Think of a datacenter with multiple vendors representing multiple software and hardware products. Consequently, SCOM was developed to be extensible using the concept of management packs. Vendors typically develop one or more management packs for every product they want plugged into SCOM.
To facilitate these management packs, SCOM supports standard discovery and data collection mechanisms like SNMP, but also affords vendors the flexibility of native API driven data collection. Nutanix provides management packs that support using the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to monitor a Nutanix cluster.
The management packs collect information about software (cluster) elements through SNMP and hardware elements through ipmiutil (Intelligent Platform Management Interface Utility) and REST API calls and then package that information for SCOM to digest. Note: The Hardware Elements Management Pack leverages the ipmiutil program to gather information from Nutanix block for Fans, Power Supply and Temperature.
After the management packs have been installed and configured, you can use SCOM to monitor a variety of Nutanix objects including cluster, alert, and performance views as shown in examples below. Also, I check out this great video produced by pal @mcghem . He shows a great demo of the SCOM management pack…Kudo’s Mike….also, check out his blog.
Views and Objects Snapshots 
Cluster Monitoring Snapshots
In the following diagram views, users can navigate to the components with failure.
The following provides an high level overview of Nutanix Cluster with Components:
The following sections describe Nutanix Cluster objects being monitored by this version of MPs:
Monitored Element | Description |
Version | Current cluster version. This is the nutanix-core package version expected on all the Controller VMs. |
Status | Current Status of the cluster. This will usually be one of started or stopped |
TotalStorageCapacity | Total storage capacity of the cluster |
UsedStorageCapacity | Number of bytes of storage used on the cluster |
Iops | For Performance: Cluster wide average IO operations per second |
Latency | For Performance: Cluster wide average latency |
Monitored Element | Description |
ControllerVMId | Nutanix Controller VM Id |
Memory | Total memory assigned to CVM |
NumCpus | Total number of CPUs allocated to a CVM |
A storage pool is a group of physical disks from SSD and/or HDD tier.
Monitored Element | Description |
PoolId | Storage pool id |
PoolName | Name of the storage pool |
TotalCapacity | Total capacity of the storage pool Note: An alert if there is drop in capacity may indicate a bad disk. |
UsedCapacity | Number of bytes used in the storage pool |
Monitored Element | Description |
IOPerSecond | Number of IO operations served per second from this storage pool. |
AvgLatencyUsecs | Average IO latency for this storage pool in microseconds |
A container is a subset of available storage within a storage pool. Containers hold the virtual disks (vDisks) used by virtual machines. Selecting a storage pool for a new container defines the physical disks where the vDisks will be stored.
Monitored Element | Description |
ContainerId | Container id |
ContainerName | Name of the container |
TotalCapacity | Total capacity of the container |
UsedCapacity | Number of bytes used in the container |
Monitored Element | Description |
IOPerSecond | Number of IO operations served per second from this container. |
AvgLatencyUsecs | Average IO latency for this container in microseconds |
Monitored Element | Description |
Discovery IP Address | IP address used for discovery of cluster |
Cluster Incarnation ID | Unique ID of cluster |
CPU Usage | CPU usage for all the nodes of cluster |
Memory Usage | Memory usage for all the nodes of cluster |
Node IP address | External IP address of Node |
System Temperature | System Temperature |
Monitored Element | Description |
Disk State/health | Node state as returned by the PRISM [REST /hosts “state” attribute ] |
Disk ID | ID assigned to the disk |
Disk Name | Name of the disk (Full path where meta data stored) |
Disk Serial Number | Serial number of disk |
Hypervisor IP | Host OS IP where disk is installed |
Tire Name | Disk Tire |
CVM IP | Cluster VM IP which controls the disk |
Total Capacity | Total Disk capacity |
Used Capacity | Total Disk used |
Online | If Disk is online or offline |
Location | Disk location |
Cluster Name | Disk cluster name |
Discovery IP address | IP address through which Disk was discovered |
Disk Status | Status of the disk |
Monitored Element | Description |
Node State/health | Node state as returned by the PRISM [REST /hosts “state” attribute ] |
Node IP address | External IP address of Node |
IPMI Address | IPMI IP address of Node |
Block Model | Hardware model of block |
Block Serial Number | Serial number of block |
CPU Usage % | CPU usage for Node |
Memory Usage % | Memory usage for node |
Fan Count | Total fans |
Power Supply Count | Total Power supply |
System Temperature | System Temperature |
Monitored Element | Description |
Fan number | Fan number |
Fan speed | Fan speed in RPM |
Element | Description |
Power supply number | Power supply number |
Power supply status | Power supply status whether present or absent |
If you would like to checkout the Nutanix management pack on your SCOM instance, please go to our portal to download the management pack and documentation.
This management pack was development by our awesome engineering team @ Nutanix. Kudos to Yogi and team for a job well done!!! 😉 I hope I gave you a good feel for Nutanix monitoring using SCOM. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave below….
Until next time….Rob
To continue Windows Azure Pack series here is my next topic: Installing and Configuring Windows Azure Pack
If you missed other parts of the series, check links below:
Part 1 – Understanding Windows Azure Pack
Part 2 – Understanding Windows Azure Pack – Deployment Scenarios
Part 3 – Understanding Windows Azure Pack – How to guide with Express Edition on Nutanix – Environment Prep
Part 4 – Deploying Service Provider Framework on Nutanix
Again to reiterate from my previous blog posts and set some context, Windows Azure Pack (WAP) includes the following capabilities: Continue reading
To continue NPP training series here is my next topic: Drive Breakdown
If you missed other parts of my series, check out links below:
Part 1 – NPP Training series – Nutanix Terminology
Part 2 – NPP Training series – Nutanix Terminology
Cluster Architecture with Hyper-V
Data Structure on Nutanix with Hyper-V
I/O Path Overview
To give credit, most of the content was taken from Steve Poitras’s “Nutanix Bible” blog as his content is the most accurate and then I put a Hyper-V lean to it.
In this section I’ll cover how the various storage devices (SSD / HDD) are broken down, partitioned and utilized by the Nutanix platform. NOTE: All of the capacities used are in Base2 Gibibyte (GiB) instead of the Base10 Gigabyte (GB). Formatting of the drives with a filesystem and associated overheads has also been taken into account.
SSD devices store a few key items which are explained in greater detail above:
Below we show an example of the storage breakdown for a Nutanix node’s SSD(s):
NOTE: The sizing for OpLog is done dynamically as of release 4.0.1 which will allow the extent store portion to grow dynamically. The values used are assuming a completely utilized OpLog. Graphics and proportions aren’t drawn to scale. When evaluating the Remaining GiB capacities do so from the top down. For example the Remaining GiB to be used for the OpLog calculation would be after Nutanix Home and Cassandra have been subtracted from the formatted SSD capacity. Most models ship with 1 or 2 SSDs, however the same construct applies for models shipping with more SSD devices. For example, if we apply this to an example 3060 or 6060 node which has 2 x 400GB SSDs this would give us 100GiB of OpLog, 40GiB of Content Cache and ~440GiB of Extent Store SSD capacity per node. Storage for Cassandra is a minimum reservation and may be larger depending on the quantity of data.
For a 3061 node which has 2 x 800GB SSDs this would give us 100GiB of OpLog, 40GiB of Content Cache and ~1.1TiB of Extent Store SSD capacity per node.
Since HDD devices are primarily used for bulk storage, their breakdown is much simpler:
For example, if we apply this to an example 3060 node which has 4 x 1TB HDDs this would give us 80GiB reserved for Curator and ~3.4TiB of Extent Store HDD capacity per node.
NOTE: the above values are accurate as of 4.0.1 and may vary by release.
Next up, I figured we would look at some of the cool software technologies that run on our CVM (Controller Virtual Machine), next up Elastic Dedupe Engine.
Until next time, Rob
Another very exciting announcement was Nutanix Community Edition (CE) on June 9th, 2015 at our Inaugural .NEXT conference. So, what is it?…..Our website describes it the best “Community Edition is a 100% software solution enabling technology enthusiasts to easily evaluate the latest hyperconvergence technology at zero cost.” In other words, you can use your own hardware to test out Nutanix. Very cool. This is great for building a lab and just gaining understanding of hyperconvergence hands on.
Nutanix is offering a hardware compatibility list (HCL) to users that includes the minimum requirements to run the software; essentially, any standard x86 server can be used….
And to quote our CEO and co-founder Dheeraj Pandey,
“From our very first software release in 2012, Nutanix has been dedicated to open architectures and technologies, offering unprecedented customer choice and flexibility,” “Community Edition is the next step in democratizing hyperconverged infrastructure technology, enabling anyone to experience the transformative benefits of our software. Only by eliminating the requirement for proprietary hardware and embracing off-the-shelf platforms can the next revolution of datacenter technologies be fully realized.”
As the name implies, the support for the CE will come from the community through Nutanix’s NEXT online portal. Users will be able to log in, ask questions and get answers from the community.
CE also allow you to also check our new hypervisor based on KVM and Acropolis. Check out Josh Odger’s Blog to learn more about Acropolis.
Join the beta…And don’t forget my NPP training series that helps you with all the concepts around hyperconvergence.
Currently, I am getting started with Nutanix CE installation and will be posting my experiences in a later blog post with how I build my Nutanix Lab @ Home. 🙂
Until next time….Rob
To continue the Windows Azure Pack series, here is my next topic: Installing and Configuring Service Provider Foundation
If you missed other parts of the series, check links below:
Part 1 – Understanding Windows Azure Pack
Part 2 – Understanding Windows Azure Pack – Deployment Scenarios
Part 3 – Understanding Windows Azure Pack – How to guide with Express Edition on Nutanix – Environment Requirements
There are 2 main steps to deploying WAP (Windows Azure Pack) on Nutanix:
SPF is provided with System Center 2012 – Orchestrator, a component of System Center 2012 R2. SPF exposes an extensible OData web service that interacts with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). This enables service providers and hosters to design and implement multi-tenant self-service portals that integrate IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) capabilities available on System Center 2012 R2. The following picture shows how System Center w/SPF interacts with WAP to provide VM Cloud Services (see TechNet article for more info):
As with every installation, SPF requires additional software, features and server roles. Setup wizard checks prerequisites and reports about their status. Unfortunately, there is no “button” to install all of requirements automatically. I’ve wrote a script to automate this process (see below). Please note: Don’t try to install SPF on the SCVMM Server. It’s not supported.
Requirements:
This script will install all requirements except SCVMM console (please note that SCVMM console has to be installed manually):
#IIS + Process activation model
Install-WindowsFeature Web-Asp-Net45,Web-Scripting-Tools,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,NET-WCF-Services45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Scripting-Tools,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-Config-APIs,ManagementOdata
#Download and install WcfDataServices and AspNetMVC4
New-Item C:SPFRequirements -ItemType Directory
Invoke-WebRequest http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/F/9/8F93DBBD-896B-4760-AC81-646F61363A6D/WcfDataServices.exe -OutFile C:SPFRequirementswcfdatasvc.exe
Invoke-WebRequest http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/F/6/2F63CCD8-9288-4CC8-B58C-81D109F8F5A3/AspNetMVC4Setup.exe -OutFile C:SPFRequirementsaspnetmvc.exe
Set-Location C:SPFRequirements
.aspnetmvc.exe /quiet
Wait-Process aspnetmvc
.wcfdatasvc.exe /quiet
Wait-Process wcfdatasvc
Write-Host “All prerequisites are installed. Insert your SCVMM 2012 R2 DVD and install SCVMM Console manually. Then your environment will be ready for SPF installation“
And the following domain group
This admin group should be added to the local Administrators group on the SPF server.
The Service Provider Foundation provides an extensible OData web service. Communications to this web service can and should be encrypted by SSL. SSL requires certificates. The Service Provider Foundation allows for self-singed certificates (for testing purposes) and certificates issued by a standalone Certificate Authority, an enterprise Certificate Authority or a public Certificate Authority. The Service Provider Foundation install defaults to self-signed (wizard creates one automatically) or you can obtain a certificate from a Public CA for production.
The Service Provider Foundation setup is on the System Center Orchestrator R2 media.
When installing, login to the SPF server as a user that has DBO/SA rights to the SQL 2012 instance that will be hosting SPF databases.
Define application pool credentials (spfadminsvc) and SPF_Admin Group that will have an access to SPF services and click Next. It’s best practices to create new domain accounts for every SPF services instead of using Network Service account.
Provider Web Service properties , click Next
Usage Web Service configuration, click Next
Windows updates + CEIP – yes (Microsoft needs your feedback 🙂 ), click Next
Click Install
Setup is complete!
Update SPF with the latest rollup (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3021802) or use Windows Update.
Please note, the latest roll-up causing an issue in IIS and breaks SPF Web from working. I ran into this during my lab deployment. Check out this blog post on “System Center 2012 R2 : Update Rollup 4 breaks the SPF website” that fixes the issue.
This completes the SPF install. In a future blog post, we will be integrating SPF with WAP and SCVMM.
Additional links:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj642895.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn266007.aspx
Next up in my series, Installing the Windows Azure Pack on Nutanix
Until next time, Rob….
A special thanks to @andreleibovici @LauraPadillaSF @jweingarten @Tomorrowisms @LukasLundell @nutanix for all the great pics and videos….
This was our first user conference in sunny Miami, Fla. The conference turned out great and we had lots of customers and partners at the event from around the world. And as you know, its all about the customer. 🙂 Some Highlights include a speech from Condalisa Rice and a guest appearance from Microsoft’s Vjay Tewari from General Manager, Global Network Services. Also, we launch our first NPX boot camp and certified 7 people.
Very exciting day today….at our Nutanix .NEXT conference…We announced our vision for Invisible Infrastructure for the Datacenter of the Future…Which is the future of datacenter weather you are onpremis or in the cloud….WebScale methodology is how you build out your datacenter….the second video is a great interview with Vijay Tewari & Sunil Potti at .NEXT…….It great to see all the hard work that my company, team and I have come together at this great conference…..Truly humbling experience…..
Many of the transformative technologies in our lives are things that we don’t even think about. They just work, remove constraints and limitations and eliminate the need for guesswork and prediction. We are not even aware of them.
As technology becomes increasingly central to how a business operates, the way it stays competitive and relevant to its customers, IT infrastructure needs to become invisible as well. Applications and services need infrastructure, but you don’t want to spend all your time dealing with infrastructure issues. It is the plumbing that makes your applications run. You want it to work in a flawless way without much effort. This is what the Nutanix solution does for you. Sit back and enjoy the show…
Until next time, Rob…