GlassHouse Technologies Blog

The past few days I have been setting up some evaluations of various tools used to monitor a VMware View implementation. I thought I’d share what I’ve seen so far. These are not full technical reviews of the products, in fact I’ve linked to quite a bit of external content that I’ve found, but rather [...]

 
EMC’s VPLEX can integrate with VBlocks and leverage VMware, Cisco, and EMC packages which provide a solution for computing, network, storage, and management.
VPLEX is a pay as you grow module, starts small and grow as you need. The VPLEX comes in two configurations:
• VPLEX Local – allows data mobility across arrays in a local data center [...]

There are many platforms and requirement metrics to consider when developing a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan and the infrastructure design to support it. The recovery of the compute platform and to what level of performance is usually pushed toward the end because of the metrics involved. A metric that is routinely examined, but is difficult [...]

If one was to believe the statistics presented by some vendors, you’d be forgiven for thinking the vast majority of organisations are already running extensive levels of virtualisation across their production environments. In reality, however, many organisations have actually only virtualised the low hanging fruit or are still is the process of piloting their virtual [...]

With tightened budgets, businesses are constantly looking for way to see a rapid return on investment (ROI). This has increased interest in the adoption of pay-as-you-go cloud services and virtualisation technologies where the ROI can be very attractive. In recent months, Tom Brand, virtualisation practice lead at GlassHouse Technologies has found himself frequently answering the [...]

What is “Cloud Computing”, What’s needed to get there and how does VMware fit in?
By Rob Zylowski Director, Services and Director, IP GlassHouse Technologies, Inc.
VMWorld 2009
Wiki – Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.  Users need not have knowledge [...]

VKernel Capacity Analyzer
http://www.vkernel.com/products/CapacityAnalyzer
Product Data Sheet available here.
Pricing is $199/socket. VKernel is a certified virtual appliance, so no Windows licensing is necessary.
Evaluation licensing is a 14-day license, and will manage one vCenter or 3 hosts. In my eval, it is pointed to a vCenter, and sees the 8-host cluster with no problem.
This tool also interacts with [...]

Tek-Tools Virtual Profiler
http://www.tek-tools.com/virtual/overview.php
Product technical brief available here. (Registration required)
Pricing is per host, with a required base framework as well. A starter pack with the framework and 3 host licenses retails for $4495, with additional hosts at $995. This tool runs on top of windows, so count that in your cost estimates.
The evaluation license will monitor [...]

Veeam Monitor
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-monitoring.html
Product datasheet available here.
Veeam Monitor also has two versions – a free (yes FREE!) version with full monitoring capabilities, but it does not include capacity planning. The non-free version is $250/socket. This tool also runs on top of Windows Server, so include a Windows server cost in your estimating.
The evaluation displays as an “Evaluation [...]

Quest vFoglight
http://www.vizioncore.com/products/vFoglight
You can get their product brief PDF here.
vFoglight is priced per CPU, with two versions. SE is $499/socket, Pro is $699/socket. There is also a vEssentials package where you can pick your three favorite vizioncore products (hello vRanger Pro!), for $899/socket. These prices include 1 year of maintenance – 3 year packages are also [...]