Announcing Runecast Analyzer v1.7

Introducing VMware vSAN and VMware "stack" in Runecast Analyzer v1.7

Runecast announces the release of version 1.7 of its proactive issue detection software, Runecast Analyzer. The latest version is the next step in a mission to help admins around the globe build and maintain VMware virtualized systems and data centers. 

The most notable changes and new functionality:

1. New product covered: VMware vSAN
2. New VMware stack visualization of risks and issues
3. vSphere web plugin integration improvements (HTML5 and FLEX)

Support for VMware vSAN

Version 1.7 brings very extensive support for VMware vSAN (virtualized storage) and proactive issue detection and remediation. vSAN is a very common vSphere extension and as a storage component, it is critical in not only monitoring performance but also keeping the vSAN configuration in optimal condition and preventing future failures or outages.

Runecast Analyzer v1.7 scans vSAN clusters and tests their configurations against a large database of VMware Knowledge Base and Best Practice rules. Then, not only does it produce a list of issues which may affect vSAN availability or functionality and may strike the environment at any time, but also provides clear guides for how to fix them.

Runecast Analyzer is powered by the largest database of automated VMware knowledge on the market which feed its internal archive of known issues. As opposed to other tools, like integrated vSAN health reporting, it does not send ANY data over the internet for analysis, drastically lowering potential security risks and works fully in offline mode.

See the example below of an issue that can seriously affect VMware vMotion functionality when moving a VM with 64GB memory (or more) – an issue that conventional monitoring tools do not report until it happens:

Similarly, Runecast Analyzer shows vSAN clusters in a topological view and their relation to the adjacent and underlying VMware vCenters and VMs, providing insight into the severity and location of the affected VMs:

Visibility into VMware stack risks and threats

While having software that can detect problems, send alerts and create reports is certainly very useful and important, VMware is "just" another IT product, and admins and engineers wear many hats. Runecast’s team is made up of many VMware engineers who know that sometimes IT departments need to operate in "keep the lights on" mode.

The presence of too many vague alerts from various monitoring tools makes prioritization and investigation slow, leaving teams with only enough time to resolve the most visible and critical issues.

This problem is exactly why Runecast Analyzer has introduced "VMware stack" to the main dashboard. This new visual component helps admins to very quickly prioritize which problems to solve first and where.

The VMware stack consists of 5 main layers: "Management", "VM", "Compute", "Network" and "Storage".

Runecast Analyzer finds, prioritizes and sorts all detected problems into those five categories. The purpose here is to make it easier for admins to identify critical issues and assess risk. For example, several medium-level VM issues may affect a limited number of specific machines, whereas a critical storage problem can affect all of them.

This VMware stack widget is fully interactive and the user can select, click and drill-down to see the specific issue(s).

Improved vSphere web integration

For users who prefer to use vSphere’s web client (both HTML5 or FLEX) to monitor and manage vCenters and vSAN, Runecast Analyzer v1.7 features an improved version of its vSphere web plugin. The plugin displays all issues detected by Runecast Analyzer with all details about their root causes, as well as effective steps for resolving them.

The new update is now available for download and update to all users with an active subscription through our customer portal. The upgrade can be carried out manually or automatically if Runecast Analyzer is set up for "scheduled updates". As always, the latest version is available for a free 14-day trial.

We would like to thank all users, bloggers, VMUG community and VMware experts who helped us with this release.