Managing VxRail

This module introduces Dell AIOps support for Dell VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure. We will review the multisystem views and system details pages showing Health, Inventory, and Capacity for VxRail systems.

System Health - VxRail

In this lesson, we will take a quick look at the Proactive Health Score for VxRail hyperconverged systems.

Let's again return to the multi-system views by selecting **Monitor > Infrastructure** from the left hand navigation pane.

Let's change the view to **Health** and **HCI** to view the VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure systems.

Click **"HCI"**

This page shows the health scores across all of the monitored VxRail systems in the environment. We can see that the health score is based on the following categories: **Components, Configuration, Capacity, and Performance.**

Click **"Dell Mart - Café Market San Francisco, CA"** hyperlink

We are directed to the **Health** tab for the VxRail cluster. We see there are six total issues with highest impact issue being in the Performance category.

We see 2 identified performance issues with the 40 point deduction based on the fact that over 75 percent of the hosts in the cluster have high CPU usage. Click **"-40"**

In this example, we see that we are given a link to a knowledge base article to reference to resolve the issue.

Scroll down to review the **Health Score History** chart. We can see that this has been a recurring issue over the past several days.

Selecting one of the events on the chart or in the **Health Changes** column provides the details of the new or resolved issue(s) below the chart.

System Inventory - VxRail

This lesson provides an overview of the VxRail configuration information provided by Dell AIOps.

Select **Monitor > Infrastructure** from the left hand navigation menu.

Select **Inventory** from the left pull-down menu view to see all of the VxRail systems being monitored by Dell AIOps

Each card shows the VxRail **model, Software Version, Last Contact Time, Location and Site information, and Contract Expiration date**.

Click **"Cloud data center"** hyperlink

We are directed to the **Inventory** tab on the system details page for the Cloud data center VxRail cluster. Similar to other products, the top of this page shows various attributes including Site and Location data, Software Versions, Deployment Type, vCenter information, vSAN Datastore Sharing (HCI Mesh role), License types, and Contract Expiration. The bottom of the page has two tabs. The first tab is **HARDWARE** which shows the Hosts view by default. Here we can see the server name, serial number, model, service tag, and OS version for each host.

The view can be changed by selecting the pull down menu.

Click **"Disks"**

We can see information about the physical drives in the VxRail cluster including the associated ESXi host, Slot and Enclosure, Serial Number, Firmware, Capacity, and Datastore configured on the drive.

Click **"Power Supplies"** from the drop down menu.

We can see various attributes of the power supplies including serial number, part number, and version.

Click **"Version Information"**

We now see a consolidated view of the various OS, BIOS, and firmware versions for the system.

Select the **Datastores** tab when you are ready to proceed.

This last tab shows the Datastore Name, Datastore Type, and capacity information.

System Capacity - VxRail

This lesson covers capacity monitoring for VxRail clusters.

Select **Monitor > Infrastructure** from the left hand navigation menu.

Select **Capacity** from the left pull-down menu. This will display a summary of the usable, used, and free capacities for all of our VxRail systems being monitored by Dell AIOps.

Click **"Dell Mart - Mega Market Boston, MA"** hyperlink

We are directed to the **Capacity** tab on the systems details page for this VxRail cluster. The top of the page shows the Capacity Forecast trend line displaying the Free, Used, and Total storage along with the Used Forecast and Confidence Range. By default, a capacity trend line is shown from 3 months ago until the predicted full date. The pull-downs can be used to change the time range for the chart. We can see up to 2 years of historical data in this chart.

For example, click **"3 months ago"**

Click **"1 month ago"**

Click **"Predicted Full"**

Click **"Today"**

We can see that the capacity forecast chart has been updated to show the capacity trend over the last month.\ One final thing to point out is the bottom of the page provides a horizontal bar chart of the current values of Total, Used, and Free capacity.

Virtualization View - VxRail

This lesson introduces the Virtualization View in Dell AIOps. The Virtualization View was initially introduced to view and manage VxRail components such as vCenter, Data Center, and ESXi clusters in a traditional VMware navigation model. It has since been expanded to cover storage based vCenters from the Dell AIOps Collector, but this lesson only looks at VxRail support.

We access the Virtualization View by selecting **Monitor > Virtualization** from the left hand navigation menu.

The **Virtualization** page shows a traditional VMware tree style navigation that administrators are familiar with from vCenter. It includes both VxRail clusters and storage based ESXi clusters. The top level is All vCenter Servers and is the default selection. The top right side of the page has a banner with a summary of VxRail health status (storage based ESXi clusters fall under the Unknown category), Alerts by severity, and VMs by power status.

The bottom of the page has three tabs: **Summary, Alert and VMs**. The Summary tab is displayed by default and shows us key metrics and attributes for each cluster. These include the name (which is a hyperlink to the system details page for that cluster), CPU, Memory, and Capacity utilizations, number of VMs, a hyperlink to vCenter, the VxRail or vCenter Version, and the VxRail Location.

Click **"DellMart.vCenter1.local"** to show only those clusters being monitored by this vCenter.

We can now see that the Summary tab displays two VxRail clusters managed by this vCenter as well as an APEX Private Cloud and APEX Hybrid Cloud deployment.

Select the **Details** icon for **Dell Mart - Mega Market Boston**.

The **DETAILS** tab is shown in the details page with additional attributes for this cluster.

Select the **HEALTH ISSUES** tab.

The **HEALTH ISSUES** tab displays the issues affecting the Proactive Health Score for this cluster. Selecting an individual issue displays the recommended remediation as shown below.

Click the **"Alerts"** tab when you are ready to proceed.

The **Alerts** tab shows all alerts for the cluster(s) selected in the left hand tree. In this case, the two clusters under vCenter1. Select the **Details** icon for the bottom alert.

The **Alert Details** window appears giving us details about the alert and component including the Error Code, Service Tag, and Description.

Click the **"VMs"** tab to proceed.

We now see a list of the VMs under **DellMart.vCenter1.local**. We can see the Name, State, CPU and Memory, VxRail Cluster, vCenter hyperlink, and ESXi Hostname for each VM.

Multicluster Update - VxRail

This lesson introduces the multicluster update feature for VxRail. This feature allows us to centrally download and install updates to one or more VxRail clusters, improving operational efficiency while maintaining security and consistency.

Select **Manage - System Updates** from the left hand navigation menu.

Select the **HCI** tab to access the system updates page for VxRail clusters.

The top of the page shows a breakdown of current VxRail versions. The bottom of the page lists the VxRail clusters, update status, current version, target version, and vCenter name. Dell AIOps intelligently provides a list of all possible target versions based on the currently cluster version.

When preparing for an update, users can select the Pre-Check task from the Available Tasks section. The Pre-Check task determines the cluster's readiness for a system update and includes the checks found in VxVerify. Select **Pre-Check**.

The Download task downloads and stages the update bundle to the VxRail Manager VM of the cluster. It identifies and bundles only the necessary component files needed for the system update which can significantly reduce file transfer size and download times. Select **Download.**

Select the box next to **Cloud Data Center**.

Note that the target version column has a pull-down men of available versions. We can leave the version at 7.0.300 and select **RUN TASKS**.

We are prompted to provide a name for the job. Enter a name of **Demo** in the Job Name field and select **Next**.

**Expand** the row to see the details for the update for Cloud Data Center.

Dell AIOps provides a summary of the task including current and target versions for each component and an estimated time which helps us to plan the update tasks. Select **Cancel** since this process will not function in the simulator.

In a production environment, after clicking Finish in the summary screen, we would be directed to the Jobs page. Let's go there. Click **"Admin"**

Click **"Jobs"**

Scroll down and select the **Pre-Check - GJDGXW** link to open the Job Results page for this failed job.

The Job Results page provided details of that start and end times of the job and the outcomes. Error codes and links to applicable knowledge base articles are provided to help us address any issues so that we can proceed with the update. Select **Close** when you are ready to proceed.

Congratulations! You have reached the end of this particular lesson. Click **Close** in the top left corner of this script to return to the demo guide.

Managing VxRail

System Health - VxRail

In this lesson, we will take a quick look at the Proactive Health Score for VxRail hyperconverged systems.

Let's again return to the multi-system views by selecting **Monitor > Infrastructure** from the left hand navigation pane.

Let's change the view to **Health** and **HCI** to view the VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure systems.

Click **"HCI"**

Click **"Dell Mart - Café Market San Francisco, CA"** hyperlink

We are directed to the **Health** tab for the VxRail cluster. We see there are six total issues with highest impact issue being in the Performance category.

We see 2 identified performance issues with the 40 point deduction based on the fact that over 75 percent of the hosts in the cluster have high CPU usage. Click **"-40"**

In this example, we see that we are given a link to a knowledge base article to reference to resolve the issue.

Scroll down to review the **Health Score History** chart. We can see that this has been a recurring issue over the past several days.

Selecting one of the events on the chart or in the **Health Changes** column provides the details of the new or resolved issue(s) below the chart.

System Inventory - VxRail

This lesson provides an overview of the VxRail configuration information provided by Dell AIOps.

Select **Monitor > Infrastructure** from the left hand navigation menu.

Select **Inventory** from the left pull-down menu view to see all of the VxRail systems being monitored by Dell AIOps

Each card shows the VxRail **model, Software Version, Last Contact Time, Location and Site information, and Contract Expiration date**.

Click **"Cloud data center"** hyperlink

The view can be changed by selecting the pull down menu.

Click **"Disks"**

Click **"Power Supplies"** from the drop down menu.

We can see various attributes of the power supplies including serial number, part number, and version.

Click **"Version Information"**

We now see a consolidated view of the various OS, BIOS, and firmware versions for the system.

Select the **Datastores** tab when you are ready to proceed.

This last tab shows the Datastore Name, Datastore Type, and capacity information.

System Capacity - VxRail

This lesson covers capacity monitoring for VxRail clusters.

Select **Monitor > Infrastructure** from the left hand navigation menu.

Select **Capacity** from the left pull-down menu. This will display a summary of the usable, used, and free capacities for all of our VxRail systems being monitored by Dell AIOps.

Click **"Dell Mart - Mega Market Boston, MA"** hyperlink

For example, click **"3 months ago"**

Click **"1 month ago"**

Click **"Predicted Full"**

Click **"Today"**

Virtualization View - VxRail

We access the Virtualization View by selecting **Monitor > Virtualization** from the left hand navigation menu.

Click **"DellMart.vCenter1.local"** to show only those clusters being monitored by this vCenter.

We can now see that the Summary tab displays two VxRail clusters managed by this vCenter as well as an APEX Private Cloud and APEX Hybrid Cloud deployment.

Select the **Details** icon for **Dell Mart - Mega Market Boston**.

The **DETAILS** tab is shown in the details page with additional attributes for this cluster.

Select the **HEALTH ISSUES** tab.

The **HEALTH ISSUES** tab displays the issues affecting the Proactive Health Score for this cluster. Selecting an individual issue displays the recommended remediation as shown below.

Click the **"Alerts"** tab when you are ready to proceed.

The **Alerts** tab shows all alerts for the cluster(s) selected in the left hand tree. In this case, the two clusters under vCenter1. Select the **Details** icon for the bottom alert.

The **Alert Details** window appears giving us details about the alert and component including the Error Code, Service Tag, and Description.

Click the **"VMs"** tab to proceed.

We now see a list of the VMs under **DellMart.vCenter1.local**. We can see the Name, State, CPU and Memory, VxRail Cluster, vCenter hyperlink, and ESXi Hostname for each VM.

Multicluster Update - VxRail

Select **Manage - System Updates** from the left hand navigation menu.

Select the **HCI** tab to access the system updates page for VxRail clusters.

Select the box next to **Cloud Data Center**.

Note that the target version column has a pull-down men of available versions. We can leave the version at 7.0.300 and select **RUN TASKS**.

We are prompted to provide a name for the job. Enter a name of **Demo** in the Job Name field and select **Next**.

**Expand** the row to see the details for the update for Cloud Data Center.

In a production environment, after clicking Finish in the summary screen, we would be directed to the Jobs page. Let's go there. Click **"Admin"**

Click **"Jobs"**

Scroll down and select the **Pre-Check - GJDGXW** link to open the Job Results page for this failed job.

Congratulations! You have reached the end of this particular lesson. Click **Close** in the top left corner of this script to return to the demo guide.