Veeam Management Pack

2015

There was a version of Veeam Management Pack v8 for Microsoft System Center

On May 13, 2015 the Veeam Software company announced release of release of the version of Veeam Management Pack (MP) of v8 for Microsoft System Center.

Screenshot of application window 2015

In this version are included:

• Exhaustive report on infrastructure: the new summary report provides formation of complete idea of virtual infrastructure. Due to inclusion of data on consolidation and density, such as excessive selection of resources of storage, the report simplifies to the management a problem of determination of a current status of the IT system and efficiency evaluation of its work.

• The improved possibilities of planning of hybrid cloud environments: as suppliers of public clouds continue to implement innovations and to propose solutions of the corporate level on the basis of public cloud environments, the companies begin to pass into the hybrid clouds representing a combination of private and public clouds. Especially for the companies planning transfer of transactions in a hybrid cloud, Veeam MP v8 offers expanded means of the analysis of local workloads and forecasting of the infrastructure resources provided in the form of service (IaaS) which are necessary for work with these loadings in a public cloud, for example, on new VM Azure of series D.

• Reports on backup in a cloud: Veeam MP v8 expands a set of reports, adding reports on backup copies in a cloud of Azure, managed C the help of Veeam Cloud Connect for service providers.

Veeam Management Pack v8 for System Center will become available to users in the 3rd  quarter 2015.

it is available to software of Veeam Management Pack v8 for Microsoft System Center

On August 25, 2015 the Veeam company released the upgraded version of a product for complex monitoring and problem solving in virtual environment of Veeam Management Pack v8 for System Center^[1].

Screenshot of the Applications on VM window, 2015

Possibilities of this version of Veeam Management Pack v8 for System Center:

• App-to-metal visibility
  • the Basic function of a system allowing to organize control of all components of physical and virtual infrastructure and communications between them.

• Full support of VMware vSphere 6 - all opportunities, such as Virtual Volumes Datastores (VVOLs), vCenter components, licensing and network interaction are supported.

• Improvements of Veeam Task Manager for Hyper-V - in the new manager of tasks are supported virtual machines in SMB 3.0 storages, new metrics - CPU dispatch time. An idea of a cluster of Hyper-V and full compatibility with metrics of System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Operations Manager is had.

• Veeam Morning Coffee Dashboard is representation with convenient summary information on infrastructure on which first of all the system administrator watches. The report of Morning Coffee contains indicators of "VM density" (density of VM on a host) and the level of load of computing resources and storage systems.

• Capacity planning and right sizing - planning features of capacities of virtual infrastructure considerably extended and now contain scenarios and representations:
  • Host Failure Modeling (modeling of a situation of failure of a host)
  • Performance Forecast for vSphere Datastores (the forecast of performance for vSphere storages)
  • Performance Forecast for Hyper-V Storage (the forecast of performance for Hyper-V storage systems)
  • Performance Forecast for vSphere and Hyper-V Clusters (the forecast of performance for clusters of vSphere and Hyper-V)
  • Virtual Machine Capacity Prediction (forecast of use of resources virtual machines)
  • Resize VMs to reclaim resources (redistribution of resources of virtual machines)
  • Capacity planning for hybrid cloud (resource planning for a hybrid cloud)
  • Capacity planning for Veeam Backup Repositories (resource planning for repositories of Veeam Backup & Replication)

• Improvements of planning for Microsoft Azure or VMware vCloud Air
  • the Report for resource planning is updated according to features of Azure and vCloud Air and now with its help it is possible to predict quantity and type of resources for transfer of workloads in a cloud.

• Improvements of tracking of snapshots
  • the Forgotten snapshots and control points can occupy disk space and reduce system performance. Using "thermal cards" (heat maps) it is possible to learn - for what virtual machines there are snapshots and control points. The detailed report on hierarchy of pictures of a status, with indication of date of creation and comments is available.

"Thermal card", 2015

Other changes

• The improved visualization of topology of virtual resources

• The improved visibility of objects of Veeam Backup and Replication

Representation of Veeam Management Pack v8 for Microsoft System Center, 2015

2014: Veeam Management Pack (MP) v7

The Veeam Software company announced in May, 2014 release of Veeam Management Pack (MP) of v7 for System Center with support of Microsoft Hyper-V. The new version of Veeam MP is completely integrated with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, providing transparency of all levels of infrastructure of the Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere platforms. Besides, the 7th version of Veeam Management Pack promotes increase in transparency of infrastructure of backup of Veeam Backup & Replication which is responsible for protection of the Hyper-V and VMware environment, strategically important for business.

The solution Veeam MP is automatically integrated with a monitoring system of the System Center Operations Manager applications and allows to display dependences and communications between objects of virtual infrastructures. Thanks to charts of topology of computing resources, resources of network and data storage and also an opportunity to receive a detailed information about any infrastructure facility (from applications to the equipment) IT specialists will be able to react in the shortest possible time to any problems capable to have a negative impact on business processes and work of users.

Veeam Management Pack (MP) v7 has potential:

• Control of metrics of performance of Hyper-V in real time: Allows administrators of Hyper-V to obtain in real time detailed data about what occurs with Wednesday. At the same time the task manager of Veeam Task Manager for Hyper-V displays the level of loading of memory and the CPU of a host and each of the related virtual machines.

• Planning of load of a hybrid cloud environment: Reduces time necessary for planning of a hybrid cloud environment and allows to pass from intuitive approach to work on the basis of exact data. Veeam MP analyzes workloads on the unrolled virtual resources and formulates the corresponding recommendations for use of resources of the Microsoft Azure platform or VMware vCloud Hybrid Service, allowing the staff of IT departments to develop effective strategy of work with hybrid cloud environments and to define the budget.

• Report generation on a profile of security of a host vSphere: helps the staff of IT departments to control vSphere security settings for firewalls and services, including obtaining information on the one who and when changed installation parameters and also other crucial data necessary for tracking of a configuration of security.

• Advanced automation equipment of deployment Veeam MP: Reduce costs of time and the efforts necessary for Veeam MP deployment and provide automatic installation of components of a product even in the biggest environments of VMware.

"Having provided in the 7th version of Veeam MP a full integration with Microsoft Hyper-V, we provide to promptly growing army of users of Hyper-V the same effective management tools and monitoring which administrators of vSphere use for a long time: complete transparency of the crucial virtual systems, risk reduction and anticipatory monitoring of Hyper-V using the Microsoft System Center single console", – Ratmir Timashev, the president and the chief executive of Veeam company noted.

For July 22, 2014 two versions of the licenses Veeam MP v7 are available: Enterprise Plus and Enterprise.

• Edition Enterprise Plus provides a full range of opportunities for strategic control of all levels of the hardware-software resources and analytical tools necessary for adoption of crucial solutions, planning, optimization and correct assessment of load of dynamic virtual environments. For example, IT services can use Veeam MP for forecasting of loading of a cluster in real time for the purpose of determination of number of days to a full load of the available computing resources, allowing administrators to react to a problem in the anticipatory mode. The users of Veeam MP v6.5 having the right to technical support can update free of charge an installed product before edition EnterprisePlus.

• Edition Enterprise is intended for accomplishment of tasks of the current management and includes functions of monitoring and management of notifications, report templates and functional panels of monitoring along with a number of the opportunities for management implemented in the previous versions of Veeam MP.

Till December 31, 2014 the Veeam company free of charge provides up to 100 licenses for the production Veeam MP Enterprise Edition for Hyper-V environment counting on one customer. Free licenses can be updated to the full-function version of Enterprise Plus.

The recommended retail price of one socket (the physical processor) in Russia and the CIS: $798 for the license Enterprise Plus Edition and $443 for Enterprise Edition which can be updated before edition Enterprise Plus. The guarantee and technical support for a period of one year is included in the price of the license copy.

2013

Veeam Management Pack (MP) v6

The Veeam Software company, the developer of technological software solutions in the field of backup, replication and virtualization, announced release of the new version of v6 Veeam Management Pack (MP) system intended for expansion of opportunities of Microsoft System Center for monitoring and work planning of operating environments in April, 2013 VMware vSphere and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V.

Transition to the version of Veeam Management Pack (MP) of v6.0 opens a possibility of application of new reports for planning of loading of system resources, use of 'thermal cards' (heat maps) for resources of storage, obtaining analytical reports with data on a current status of virtual environment for the purpose of its control and management of means of Microsoft System Center.

It is possible to define weak points in resource allocation by Veeam MP before it becomes a real problem. This tool helps to analyze trends, to make forecasts, to reveal resources with excessive loading and to model a situation so that to optimize use of resources and to take process of work of virtual environment under control.

Among new reports of Veeam MP there is a modeling of a situation of failure of a host, the forecast of performance for storages, the forecast of performance for clusters vSphere and the forecast of use of the VM resources.

All information provided to Veeam MP v6 is issued in the unified type via the single console. It gives to the system administrator the chance to watch effectively a current status of physical work and virtual IT infrastructures. The new solution increases possibilities of Microsoft System Center and does effective its work in the heterogeneous environment with support of products of Microsoft and VMware: Microsoft Windows Server 2012, Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 and VMware vSphere 5.1.

Veeam MP v6 also contains:

• New topological types of storage systems, network and computers. Topological views of data warehouses and networks in Veeam MP are peculiar cards of the storages and network program components used on each virtual machine. The topology of computers allows employees of IT departments to control hosts, their physical equipment, logical components of a hypervisor and also on virtual machines which on them are started.
• 30 new panels of monitoring of System Center 2012. Use of panels of monitoring as much as possible involves new opportunities of recently released widget — a panel of monitoring of transactions in the System Center 2012 platform. The Veeam MP v6 panels show work of the critical vSphere systems in real time. On panels of monitoring it is possible to see, for example, 10 hosts with the greatest number of the CPU on a cluster, 10 virtual machines with the greatest intensity of input-output in the data warehouse, etc.
• New analytical reports of vSphere. The packet contains the following simple reports of Veeam MP on a number of usual aspects of work of infrastructure of vSphere in use:
  • Cards of intensity of space usage of storage and its loading. In one report uses, different on intensity, and growth rates of area of data warehouses are marked in code colors; in other report the intensity of input-output operations per second and waiting time on each storage on single VM is shown.
  • Period of operation of virtual machines. Tracking of availability of virtual machines to ensuring appropriate level of service.
  • Key problems. The list of objects vSphere from which the greatest number of notifications about possible errors in specific environments proceeds.
  • Virtual machines of the insufficient or excess size. Recommendations about the choice of the VM sizes necessary for ensuring productive work of DPC.
  • VM-zombie. Identification of the standing idle and disconnected VM which in vain spend resources.

• Unique instruments of job analysis and monitoring of correlation. These new monitors allow to create the dynamic report on the correlated data already in the text of the notification. Unlike other monitoring solutions of VMware, these tools accept metric data from a set of devices and collect the correlated data from other objects of vSphere for more effective and operational problem solving. For example, the notification about loading of the CPU of a host may contain information on five virtual machines consuming most of all CPU resources on this host.

Veeam Management Pack for VMware 6.5 для Microsoft System Center Operations Manager

• New enhanced fault tolerance is a possibility of automatic redirection of data collection from the vCenter server per ESXi hosts if the first was for some reason unavailable. So if vCenter fell, data collection goes directly with ESXi if rose - data collection with vCenter, without monitoring process interrupt is automatically recovered.
• New configuration tracking and alert correlation - Veeam MP traces now all vSphere of change occurring in virtual infrastructure and allows to trace what its aspects these changes affected.
• New monitoring and reporting for Veeam Backup & Replication - appeared now a possibility of monitoring not only the VMware vSphere platform, but also infrastructure of backup of Veeam Backup and Replication, including its proxy servers, servers with repositories, WAN accelerators, directly tasks of backup and many other things.
• New platforms support - Veeam Management Pack for VMware 6.5 supports now Windows Server 2012 R2 + System Center 2012 OS R2 Operations Manager, vCenter Server 4.x and later versions and also ESX 4.x and later. By itself, the new version of MP from Veeam supports VMware vSphere 5.5.

Veeam Management Pack 6.5 for VMware

On November 8, 2013 the Veeam Software company announced an exit of Veeam Management Pack (MP) 6.5 of for VMware (Veeam MP).

With the new version of the solution physical and virtual infrastructure and also applications can be operated from one console. The new version of the solution provides possibilities of the increased fault tolerance, helping to eliminate a uniform point of failure in the course of monitoring. In case of failure of vCenter Server, the solution Veeam MP 6.5 will automatically reconfigure so that data were collected directly from VMware vSphere hosts. After recovery of vCenter Server the Veeam MP system returns to a normal method of data collection, without interruption in work. From now on IT department does not have need to worry that possible failure in virtual environment will lead to monitoring errors.

Veeam MP 6.5 is integrated with Veeam Backup & Replication. There was available infrastructure management of backup by means of Microsoft System Center. That Veeam MP allows to approach unification of transactions and management of DPC from the single console. The solution detects components of infrastructure Veeam Backup & Replication and collects a set of parameters:

• free disk space on repositories,
• availability of accelerators of WAN and proxy servers,
• results of tasks on verification of a possibility of recovery of virtual machines.

The solution also allows to control the status of task performance of data backup, including performance measures, duration, the notification about possible failures and many other things.

The new report on configuration change and correlation of notifications is available to all objects of vSphere which Veeam MP 6.5 provides. With its help it is possible to learn precisely - what changed in virtual environment. If the problem of a lack of resources is connected with configuration changes, IT specialists will be able to trace growth of number of notifications, to correlate these data with configuration changes, to accelerate localization and troubleshooting.

2012

Veeam Management Pack (MP) v1

On May 4, 2012 the Veeam Software company provided Veeam Management Pack 1 (MP), the free solution for monitoring of VMware System Center 2012. The product is available to all users of Veeam who use System Center 2012. Support of System Center 2012 will provide management and protection of separate cloud solutions which include both Windows Server Hyper-V, and VMware.

Veeam Management 10-Pack is the full version of the solution which will allow customers:

• Protect investments vsystem Center using the integrated monitoring of VMware
• Manage physical and virtual infrastructure from one console
• Reduce costs for additional monitoring systems.

The users of the solution Management Pack using System Center 2012 can obtain the free license on 10 sockets which also includes 1 year of technical support.

Support of System Center 2012 is presented in the following solutions of Veeam:

• The solution MP which works together with System Center 2012 Operations Manager. Official support will be provided during the 30th days after completion of testing.
• The solution Veeam Backup&Replication v6.1 which is expected in the 2nd quarter 2012 in addition to System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 will support also System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager. Support of System Center 2012 will allow to accelerate work and to guarantee protection of the virtual machines working on the Microsoft Hyper-V servers under control of System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager.
• Veeam ONE v6 which exit took place at the beginning of May, 2012. The solution opens topology of virtual infrastructures of Windows Server Hyper-V. Sending requests to the server System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager, Veeam ONE defines the hosts and failover clusters managed by this server.

Veeam Morning Coffee Dashboard is new representation with convenient summary information on infrastructure on which first of all the system administrator behind a cup of morning coffee watches. The report of Morning Coffee contains such indicators as "VM density" (density of VM on a host) and the level of load of computing resources and storage systems.

Capacity planning and right sizing - planning features of capacities of virtual infrastructure considerably extended now and now contain the following scenarios and representations:

• Host Failure Modeling (modeling of a situation of failure of a host)
• Performance Forecast for vSphere Datastores (the forecast of performance for vSphere storages)
• Performance Forecast for Hyper-V Storage (the forecast of performance for Hyper-V storage systems)
• Performance Forecast for vSphere and Hyper-V Clusters (the forecast of performance for clusters of vSphere and Hyper-V)
• Virtual Machine Capacity Prediction (forecast of use of resources virtual machines)
• Resize VMs to reclaim resources (redistribution of resources of virtual machines)
• Capacity planning for hybrid cloud (resource planning for a hybrid cloud)
• Capacity planning for Veeam Backup Repositories (resource planning for repositories of Veeam Backup & Replication)

Notes