Installing vCOps for View 1.5, Easy, intuitive, yet very powerful!

Posted on 2013-04-12 by Stephane Asselin in General information 3 Comments

vCOps 5.7 and vCops for View 1.5

Both software were released last Friday, vCOps on it’s own is a great product but I wanted to share with you my unofficial version of the installation steps of the vCOps for View piece, together, in a View environment, it’s really cool to maintain a good health of your environment and be very proactive if any issue arises.

For more information on the software and up to date documentation, you should always consult the VMware site: http://bit.ly/Zf5Dul

Also the vCOps for View can be found here: http://bit.ly/10ZK9ib

Overview

vCenter Operations Manager for View extends the functionality of vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise, and enables IT administrators and Help Desk specialists to monitor and manage the View VDI environments. vCenter Operations Manager for View is built on top of the vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise. Therefore, it includes the functionality of collecting performance data from monitored software and hardware resources in your enterprise and provides predictive analysis and real?time information about problems in your VDI infrastructure. It presents data and analysis through alerts, in configurable dashboards, and predefined pages in the user interface.

VMware View?specific dashboards and resources are automatically configured when you install vCenter Operations Manager for View. These dashboards and resources added as part of the vCenter Operations Manager for View installation and deployment are preconfigured dashboards, resources, metrics, and alerts. As with vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise, you can customize your vCenter Operations Manager for View workspace. Depending on your access rights, you can add, delete, and arrange widgets on your dashboards, edit widget configuration options, and configure widget interactions.

vCenter Operations Manager for View incorporates the health ratings feature of vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise which gives you a quick overview of the current state of a resource in your VDI environment. vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise uses an internally?generated metric instead of the Health badge used by vCenter Operations Manager Advanced. The vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise health score is calculated using resource metric anomalies and is best described as an indicator of how closely the resource is behaving to its “normal” observed behavior. If many resource metrics are outside their expected range, then this is reflected in a decreased Health score.

Architecture

vCenter Operations Manager for View is a solution built on top of the vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise platform which enables you to monitor your VMware View 5.x VDI environment.

The diagram below shows the relationship of vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise, the vCenter Operations Manager for View Adapter, and their relationships to other vCenter Operations Manager for View VDI components.

vCenter Operations for View uses the vCenter Operations Enterprise version 5.7 platform to monitor a View 5.x environment (View version 5.0or newer is required).

The two main components of the architecture are the vCenter Operations Manager VMs and the View Adapter version 1.5. vCenter Operations Manager VMs are deployed as a vApp running on existing virtual infrastructure, and the View Adapter is installed as a separate installation step on the vApp (PAK file update).. This combination of a single vCenter Operations Manager vApp and a single vCenter Operations Manager for View Adapter is what constitutes a single vCenter Operations Manager for View instance.

The vCenter Operations Server pulls in the metrics from vCenter Server, while the View Adapter pulls in the metrics from the View Desktops, View Connection Server and the View Events Database and feeds that information back to the vCenter Operations Server. The vCenter Operations Console presents all of these metrics by connecting via a web browser. The View specific information is displayed in a custom UI (https://<vcops-UI-VM-IP>/vcops-custom) based on vCenter Operations Manager Enterprise.

The following image provides a logical presentation and the workflow of vCenter Operations Manager for View in a standard View infrastructure.

vApp Overview

The vCenter Operations Manager vApp consists of two VMs: the Analytics VM and the UI VM. The vCenter Operations Manager vApp is deployed in the View Management Block.

The Analytics VM (by default) is provisioned with 2 vCPUs, 9GB of memory and 217GB of storage space. The Analytics VM is responsible for collecting data from vCenter Server, vCenter Configuration Manager, and third party data sources such as metrics, topology and change events. The components within the Analytics VM are Capacity and Performance Analytics, Capacity Collector, File System Database and Postgres DB.

The UI VM (by default) is provisioned with 2 vCPUs, 7GB of memory and 135GB of storage space. The UI VM allows you to access the results of the analytics in the form of badges and scores using the web-based console. The applications in the UI VM are vSphere Web Application, Enterprise Web Application and Administration Web Application. More detailed information on the architecture and the individual components in the vApp can be found in the Deployment and Configuration Guide for vCenter Operations Manager (https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vCOps-5-installation-guide.pdf).

View Adapter Overview

The vCOps for View Adapter is now integrated in the Analytics VM for the most part and all you need to do is deploy the package to install the custom View dashboards in the environment. When the vCOps part is done, you will still need to make sure you deploy the Broker agent on the Horizon View Connection Server and also make sure that your View desktops can talk correctly to the vCOps environment.

The first piece of software you should install is the ZIP archive of vCOps for View in vCOps 5.7 environment. You will find that file on the vCOps for View download page, look for a file named “VMware-vcops-viewadapter-1.5.0-1067780”.

This is new from previous version, even in the Beta of this release, we had to grab a PAK file and follow the steps, when the product went GA, they decided to bundle everything together and put all the files inside a ZIP archive. vCOps looks inside the archives, all the necessary installation files are in there, you can even see for yourself the dashboards are inside a folder called Dashboards

Once you’ve downloaded that file, you will need to login to your vCOps Admin environment and install the software through the update page.

The URL to the Administration portal is https://<UI-VM>/admin/, where <UI-VM> is the IP address of the UI VM in the vCenter Operations Manager vApp.
On the Update tab, click Browse to locate the temporary folder, select the PAK file, and click Open.
Click Update and click OK to confirm the update.
The Administration user interface uploads the PAK file. The upload might take several minutes.
Read and accept the EULA, and click OK.
Click OK to confirm and start the adapter installation process.
The installation might take several minutes. Status information appears on the Update tab when the installation is finished.
Log in to the vCenter Operations Manager Custom user interface as an administrator.
The URL format is https://<UI-VM>/vcops-custom/, where <UI-VM> is the IP address of the UI VM virtual machine in the vCenter Operations Manager vApp.
Select Admin > Support.
On the Info tab, find the Adapters Info pane, and verify that the build number in the Adapter Version column for the V4V Adapter matches the build number in the PAK file that you uploaded.

The vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View adapter is installed and ready for use

NOTE The adapter installation process restarts the vCenter Operations Manager vApp. Data is not collected while the vApp is restarting.

The next step is to create an adapter instance to start collecting data.

Verify that the V4V Adapter appears in the Adapter Info pane. Select Admin > Support on the vCenter Operations Manager menu.

Once you’ve confirmed that the V4V adapter is there, you need to create the adapter instance. To do this, do the following steps:

– Select Environment > Configuration > Adapter Instances.

– From the Collector drop-down menu, select vCenter Operations Server.

– From the Adapter Kind drop-down menu, select V4V Adapter.

– Click the Add New Adapter Instance icon.

– Type a name for the adapter instance.

– From the Metric Set drop-down menu, select a set of metrics to be collected. Choose the Full set

– From the Credential drop-down menu, select the name of the credentials to use when the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View broker agent pairs with the adapter instance.

When you create an adapter instance for the first time, the Credential drop-down menu is empty. You can click Add to create a server key password.

You must type the server key password in the broker agent configuration to allow pairing between the broker agent and the adapter. Pairing the broker agent with the adapter is an authentication step that ensures that the broker agent and the adapter know each other. Pairing must be finished to allow the broker agent and the desktop agents to communicate with the adapter.

– Click OK to save the adapter instance

Install the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Broker Agent

You install the broker agent on one of the Horizon View Connection Servers in your Horizon View

environment. The vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View broker agent is a Windows service that carries out the connection between the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View adapter and the agent components on the Horizon View desktops. The broker agent collects the Horizon View inventory for the adapter, collects events from the database, and configures the desktop agents when used in Horizon View 5.2 environments. You install the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View broker agent on one of the Horizon View

Connection Server machines within a pod or a cluster. The broker agent is installed in the same folder as the Horizon View Connection Server. Only one broker agent must be installed in each Horizon View pod or cluster.

CAUTION Do not install the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View broker agent on Horizon View Security Server machines.

It is important to use a domain account with admin privileges to do this installation on the View connection server.

We are assuming here that we are able to install on a Horizon View server, version 5.2 or later (this also mean that you have a Windows 2008 R2 64bit server running View). If you have to use an older version of VMware View, please refer to the vCOps for View installation guide.

– Extract the broker agent installation file to a temporary folder on your Horizon View Connection Server. Look for this file on the VMware vCOps for View download page “VMware-v4vbrokeragent-x86_64-1.5.0-1067780”

– In the temporary folder, run the EXE file, accept the EULA, and click Install. (The installer does not provide configuration options.)

– When the installation finishes, click Finish.

The vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Broker Agent configuration dialog box opens.

Configure the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Broker Agent

You configure the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View broker agent to connect to the

vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View adapter, and to the database where Horizon View stores event data. You can also specify the desktop pools to monitor in vCenter Operations Manager. The vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Broker Configuration wizard opens automatically at the end of the broker agent installation.

– In the vCenter Operations Manager View Adapter page, type the IP address of the vCenter Operations Manager Analytics VM where the vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View adapter runs, and type the port to use for the connection. (By default, port 3091 is used for communication with the adapter, but you can modify the port number depending on your network setup)

– You can check the IP address of the Analytic VM on the Status tab of the vCenter Operations Manager Administration portal.

– Click Pair to pair the certificates of the broker agent with the adapter. You are prompted to type the server key that you specified when you configured the credentials for the adapter instance. Pairing the broker agent with the adapter is an authentication step that ensures that the broker agent and the adapter know each other. Pairing must be finished to allow the broker agent and the desktop agents to communicate with the adapter.

– Click Next.

– (Optional) If you have a previous version of vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View, import the data collected by it.

NOTE You cannot import data at a later stage. If you choose to skip the data import, all data collected before the current installation will be lost.

Select the Migrate data from previous version check-box and click Next.
(Optional) Click Browse to locate the MetricBoundaryData.xml file, and click Next.

vCenter Operations Manager uses the metric boundary data to determine what are the normal metric values in your environment. If you do not import the file, you might see abnormally high workload values until the new instance of View adapter calculates the normal values. The duration of the data migration process depends on the size of the existing database, and the

topology of your environment.

– If you have an events database set up in your View environment, type the credentials for the database in the Event DB text boxes, click Validate to verify the connection, and click Next.

– (Optional) To monitor specific Horizon View Desktop pools in vCenter Operations Manager, select the Specify desktop pools check box, type the IDs of the pools in the text box, and click Validate to verify the connection. Use commas to separate multiple pool IDs.

NOTE If you do not specify pool IDs, vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View monitors all desktop pools.

– Review the summary of the broker agent configuration and click Finish.

– The vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Broker Agent Settings dialog box appears to display the settings that your configured, and the status of the broker agent service.

– Verify that the service is running and click Close.

The vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View broker agent is installed and configured to run.

Once complete with this installation, you should have an application that will look similar to the image below.