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VMware virtual server technologies provide companies with the ability to do more with less resources. While this technology makes computing easier and efficient, virtualization makes IT infrastructures harder to monitor and manage. Effective monitoring and management is critical for these environments to be adequate replacements for traditional hardware-based infrastructures.
The eG Monitor for VMware® InfrastructuresTM (the eG VM MonitorTM), part of the eG Enterprise Suite, is a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing all aspects of virtual hosts and guests, whether the infrastructure is used to support server or desktop applications. Coupled with the ability of the eG Enterprise Suite to monitor over 80 applications, including Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP, and others, the eG VM Monitor - with its patent-pending In-N-Out MonitoringTM technology -- provides a comprehensive end-to-end solution for monitoring and managing the performance of virtual IT infrastructures.
Administrators can use the eG VM Monitor to monitor the performance of their physical and virtual infrastructures, troubleshoot problems to determine where the root-cause lies, assess where capacity bottlenecks are, and plan the usage of their servers and applications to optimize the utilization of the physical and virtual resources. The key customer benefits of this solution include higher uptime, better end-to-end performance, and operational cost savings through more effective utilization of key IT staff. |
Multi-tier IT infrastructures are a nightmare to troubleshoot because of the dependencies that exist between application tiers. For instance, a failure in the database tier could result in slow downs in the application and web server tiers. Hence, monitoring solutions that view the infrastructure as independent silos cannot effectively monitor and diagnose problems in such infrastructures. The addition of virtualization to such infrastructures makes monitoring and management of these infrastructures even more challenging!
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Fig 1: A problem in one application can affect all the other applications involved in the service delivery. |
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Fig 2: Excessive disk reads by the media server slow down Oracle database accesses |
Since a single VMware® vSphere/ESX Server is used to host multiple virtual machines (VMs), a single malfunctioning application on a VM can degrade the performance seen by applications hosted on the other VMs. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate such an example. In this scenario, users are experiencing slowness in their access to a web-based service. From the service topology, it is clear that the database server is the cause of the slowdown. Figure 2 illustrates that since the database server is hosted on the same vSphere/ESX server as a media server, high I/O activity due to increased access to the media server is resulting in the database server seeing slow disk accesses. To accurately diagnose the problem in this example, a monitoring solution must not only consider the inter-dependencies between applications that are involved in service delivery, but it must also consider the existential relationships between applications, virtual machines, and physical machines. Besides resource contention among guest virtual machines, applications executing on the vSphere/ESX service console can also affect the performance of the virtual infrastructure.
While knowing which VM is consuming excessive resources is helpful, it is even more important to understand whether the VM's behavior is normal. For instance, a memory leak in one of the applications executing inside a VM may be causing the VM's memory usage to increase over time. In such cases, it is essential that the monitoring solution be able to look in-depth into each guest VM and detect abnormalities. While deploying individual agents inside each VM provides this level of visibility, this can result in additional resource overhead, licensing fees, and maintenance cost.
Performance degradations in a virtual infrastructure may also be because a virtual machine has not been configured with sufficient resources to handle its workload. A monitoring solution must be able to differentiate problems resulting from inadequate virtual machine configuration and those resulting from hot-spots created by uneven distribution of load across vSphere/ESX servers. |
The eG VM Monitor extends the eG Enterprise monitoring technology to virtual environments. Using a patent-pending In-N-Out MonitoringTM approach, the eG VM Monitor provides a comprehensive view of an vSphere/ESX Server, including the performance of the VM kernel, the service console and all of its virtual machines. Agent-based monitoring can be used for ESX servers, while agentless monitoring can be used for ESXi servers. When agent-based monitoring is used, eG agents only have to be installed on the vSphere/ESX server -- not on individual guests. Using vSphere/ESX server APIs, the agents provide an “outside view” of a guest VM’s performance. The relative resource usage levels of the guest VMs show where the performance hogs exist. To complement the outside view, the eG agent obtains an “inside view” that details the user activity, resource allocation and the application mix running inside the VM guest operating system. All the capabilities of agent-based monitoring are also available with the agentless monitoring option for VMware vSphere/ESX servers. The eG VM Monitor automatically baselines all the metrics it collects, so that IT administrators can be informed proactively of any deviations from the norm. No other virtualization monitoring solution offers this combination of features.
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Monitoring VM guests: eG agents track the performance of each guest VM relative to shared infrastructure resources (outside view) as well as the workload and application mix of the individual guest VMs (inside view). |
From a monitoring and management standpoint, the eG monitor for VMware infrastructures goes well beyond managing virtualized servers as discrete entities. End-to-end business service views show the applications and network devices that support each business service, and the inter-dependencies among them. Applications are associated with the virtual machines they run on, and each virtual machine is mapped to the physical machine upon which it is hosted.
The dependency of the virtual machines to physical machines is determined dynamically, so as to support the VMware VMotion® Live Migration technology. A patented root-cause diagnosis engine analyzes the service topology graphs and the virtual-to-physical machine mappings to pin-point where the problems areas in the infrastructure lie.
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Monitoring and Reporting of vSphere/ESX servers: Using a custom vSphere/ESX Server model, the eG VM Monitor correlates performance across the host and guest VMs. Extensive pre-built reports enable rapid identification of bottlenecks and streamline capacity planning. |
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| vSphere/ESX Host Monitoring |
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What is the CPU load on the vSphere/ESX kernel, on the console, and each of the virtual guests? |
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What is the free memory in the vSphere/ESX kernel and the console? |
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Which network interfaces are seeing the most traffic? |
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Which storage devices are seeing high activity? |
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How much free space is available on each of the disk partitions? |
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Are there processes on the console VM that are taking up excessive resources? |
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| Virtual Guests Monitoring |
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How many virtual guest machines are running? What are their IP addresses/host names and operating systems? |
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What portion of the vSphere/ESX Server’s CPU is used by each guest? |
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Are there times when a guest is not getting CPU cycles; i.e., is the ready time too high? |
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How much of the memory allocated is a guest actively using? |
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Is the balloon driver enabled for a guest, and how much memory has it freed for each guest? |
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Which processes on a guest are taking up high disk, CPU or memory resources? |
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Is there excessive paging or memory thrashing in a guest? |
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Do all the disk partitions inside the guest operating system have adequate space? |
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Is there excessive queuing for disk access on any guest operating system? Which applications could be causing these accesses? |
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| Virtual Desktop Monitoring |
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How many desktops are powered on simultaneously on the vSphere/ESX Server? |
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Which users are logged on and when did each user login? |
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How much CPU, memory, disk and network resources is each desktop taking? |
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What is the typical duration of a user session? |
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Who has the peak usage times? |
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What applications are running on each desktop? |
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| VMotion Monitoring |
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Which vSphere/ESX Server is a virtual guest running on? |
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When was a guest moved from an vSphere/ESX Server? Which vSphere/ESX Server was the guest moved to? |
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Why was the guest migrated? What activities on the vSphere/ESX host caused the migration? |
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| Combined external and an internal views of VMware vSphere/ESX servers |
Real-time performance views of what the VMware host sees about the guests and what the guests see internally. |
| Deep diagnostics for VMware servers |
With a few clicks, drill down to the exact processes causing a problem. |
| Automatic correlation of performance |
Analyze performance across layers of the VMware infrastructure - the VM host, between the host and the guests, and across VM guests. |
| In-depth VMware VDI monitoring |
Know which users logged in, when, what applications they accessed, what resources they used, etc. |
| Monitor virtual environments with service views - not as silos |
Correlate the performance across applications hosted in the VMware environments, discover VM dependencies, and identify performance bottlenecks. |
| Single agent licensing for VMware servers |
One agent monitors the VM kernel, console, and all the VM guests. |
| Compatible with VMware Live Migration |
Detect live migration of servers across vSphere/ESX guests, determine the efficiency of live migration. |
| Extensive Reporting |
Customizable executive and operations reports on every aspect of your vSphere/ESX servers. Identify bottlenecks in real-time, plan the capacity of your VMware server farm. |
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Desktop Transformation Poses Several Monitoring and Management Challenges
In order to be effective replacements for physical desktops, virtual desktops have to deliver better reliability and performance compared to physical desktops. One of the key challenges that many virtual desktop deployments have faced is scaling the rollouts to deliver on the promised service quality and at the same time ensuring adequate return on investment for the organization. Identifying where the stress points in the infrastructure are and understanding the usage access patterns are key to ensuring that virtual desktop deployments are right-sized and can deliver the best ROI.
Virtual desktop deployments involve heterogeneous, multi-vendor technologies that have to work together seamlessly. Problems in even one of these technologies will affect the entire desktop service, and hundreds of users can be impacted as a result. To effectively monitor, administer and manage the virtual desktop service, administrators need 360 degree visibility into the virtual desktop service and the different tiers that enable this service.
Existing virtualization monitoring solutions cannot be directly applied for monitoring desktop virtualization because of the key differences between desktop and server virtualization. In the case of desktop virtualization, the workload of a virtual desktop depends on the specific user who is accessing the desktop and the applications they are accessing. The workload of a desktop VM is often more dynamic than that of a server VM. Hence, to effectively monitor and manage a virtual desktop service, you need a monitoring solution that understands the complexities of desktop virtualization.
eG Enterprise Helps Make Desktop Transformation A Reality
The eG Enterprise Suite™ from eG Innovations offers a comprehensive end-to-end solution for monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting for Citrix XenDesktop, XenApp and XenServer deployments. With eG Enterprise, you can:
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Benchmark the performance of your infrastructure before and after the desktop transformation; |
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Eliminate blind spots, proactively detect abnormalities and bottlenecks in the infrastructure and recommend reconfigurations for enhancing the service quality; |
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Analyze the usage of every layer of every tier of the infrastructure and suggest changes to scale your rollout by getting more from your existing investments; |
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Provide reports to management on exactly how the desktop transformation rollout is being used, who the top users and businesses are, and what service quality they are receiving; |
With the unparalleled visibility that eG Enterprise provides, you have instant diagnosis and ready answers when users call your helpdesk. Regardless of whether the desktop service is based on XenApp or XenDesktop, or whether it uses Citrix Provisioning Services, or whether the applications are deployed on physical servers or on a virtualization platform like XenServer, eG Enterprise ensures that you have all the information you need right at your finger-tip.
 eG Enterprise Helps in All Phases of Desktop Transformation
With eG Enterprise, you can monitor your XenDesktop, XenApp, and XenServer deployments from a central web console. With an end-to-end view of the business service, eG Enterprise complements the administration and monitoring capabilities of Citrix products and helps you understand where the root-cause of problems lie. Whether you use XenApp or XenDesktop, you get consistent reports that help you with post-mortem diagnosis, capacity planning, usage reporting, and more.
You can benefit from using eG Enterprise during each phase of desktop
transformation.
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During the deployment phase, you can use eG Enterprise to verify that the performance of the desktop service meets the objectives you set out at the beginning. |
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In the management phase, you can use eG Enterprise to monitor every tier - network, virtualization platform, connection broker, virtual desktop, storage - and receive proactive alerts about problems as well as additional diagnosis for pinpointing the root-cause of a problem. |
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Finally, in the plan/scale phase, you can use eG Enterprise to identify hot-spots and to plan future rollouts effectively. |
Making Desktop Transformation Easy, Effective and Efficient
Getting started with eG Enterprise cannot be any easier! In no more than a few minutes per server, you can begin monitoring your key servers and your virtual desktop service end-to-end. You can use eG Enterprise in the initial pilot phase of desktop transformation to assess the user access patterns and workloads and to determine where the stress points of your infrastructure are likely to be. This provides critical information that can enable you to invest wisely as you begin to rollout virtual desktops enterprise-wide. During virtual desktop rollouts, you can use eG Enterprise to continuously track the availability, performance, usage and configuration of every virtual desktop tier and proactively alert you to problems that could impact the user experience down the line.
Priced per server, regardless of the number of desktops hosted or users accessing each server, eG Enterprise offers monitoring, diagnosis and reporting all in one integrated package. You can either install it in-house or use our cloud-hosted eG Enterprise-on-Tap monitoring service which offers a pay-as-you-go subscription pricing model.
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