VMware vRealize Operations for Public Cloud

The data analytics and monitoring platform you know and love can see your public cloud workloads too! The power of VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) is most often used for your vSphere private cloud, but it can also be used for AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, and VMC on AWS.

Besides capturing public cloud services, vROps features a migration assistant helping you determine the cost to migrate to public cloud providers, it's called the What-If Analysis.

There are six main use cases available from the What-If Analysis, we're most interested in the one bottom right, Migration Planning: Public Cloud. Click the PLAN MIGRATION link and you'll be able to create a migration scenario.

There are five destinations here, including IBM Cloud, which doesn't have a vROps management pack yet, but hopefully soon. We're considering moves to AWS, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure and would like to to compare costs.

Choose the region from each provider drop down, then configure the size and number of VMs you'd like to migrate, you have the ability to select specific VMs from your environment as well. In this example, I've chosen to see pricing on the migration of 100 Linux VMs to AWS, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

You have the ability to add custom cloud providers and adjust pricing via the rate cards in Administration - Configuration - Cost Settings - Cloud Providers. To see the potential costs, click RUN SCENARIO.

You can now see what those 100 VMs are costing you in your private cloud compared to what they are expected to cost in the public cloud providers listed. You can adjust regions from the dropdown for different physical locations and pricing.

Once you've chosen a provider (or providers) for your public cloud workloads, you can start monitoring them with vROps management packs. The management packs for AWS and Microsoft Azure are currently native and can be found here.

The management pack for GCP isn't Native as of vROps 8.3, but should be later this year. It is currently available in the VMware Marketplace: https://marketplace.cloud.vmware.com/services/details/vrealize-operations-management-pack-for-google-cloud-platform/?slug=true

Once installed, you'll find it under Administration - Solutions - Repository - Other Management Packs.

Here is what each management pack includes for content in vROps 8.3:

1. AWS (https://docs.vmware.com/en/Management-Packs-for-vRealize-Operations-Manager/3.1/aws/GUID-B9E7C624-23F3-4B96-A104-CBE7D7ED0205.html)

   1. 23 Dashboards

   2. 105 Views

   3. 34 Alerts

   4. 62 Symptoms

   5. 27 Objects/Services

2. GCP (https://docs.vmware.com/en/Management-Packs-for-vRealize-Operations-Manager/1.1/GCP/GUID-638BCB76-9E18-44C5-A8D6-2BF2AC38B52F.html)

   1. 7 Dashboards

   2. 11 Views

   3. 6 Alerts

   4. 11 Symptoms

   5. 5 Objects/Services

3. Microsoft Azure (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vRealize-Operations-Cloud/services/config-guide/GUID-FE6ECBD7-0318-41B3-8785-94BBCC313420.html)

   1. 11 Dashboards

   2. 9 Views

   3. 14 Alerts

   4. 27 Symptoms

   5. 53 Services

Once installed, you'll have to configure adapter instances for each of your public cloud providers. Go to Administration - Solutions - Cloud Accounts.

Click ADD ACCOUNT which will give you the option to configure adapter instances for public and private clouds.

Select the tile you want and configure the adapter. Note: the GCP tile is under Other Accounts for now, but will move to Cloud Accounts once it's Native. There's plenty of documentation and several blogs around public cloud adapter configuration, so we won't go into it here, here are some useful links.

AWS

1. VMware Documentation - https://docs.vmware.com/en/Management-Packs-for-vRealize-Operations-Manager/3.1/aws/GUID-E1E4B429-304D-4386-8D5F-5B3DC6702BAF.html

2. Graham Barker Blog - https://virtualg.uk/monitoring-aws-services-with-vmware-vrealize-operations-8-1/

GCP

1. VMware Documentation - https://docs.vmware.com/en/Management-Packs-for-vRealize-Operations-Manager/1.1/GCP/GUID-638BCB76-9E18-44C5-A8D6-2BF2AC38B52F.html

Microsoft Azure

1. VMware Documentation - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vRealize-Operations-Cloud/services/config-guide/GUID-89CC6DF2-6728-4472-836F-8DE4517A5D39.html

Now that we are collecting data, we have visibility into our public cloud resources from vROps. Each management pack contains an Availability dashboard showing the health/status/availability of their respective services. This gives the user visibility across all public clouds from a tool they are already using for their on-prem workloads, vROps.

If you'd like to see all workloads on a single pane: vSphere VMs, AWS EC2 VMs, Microsoft Azure VMs, and GCP CE VMs, we can now do that as well.

There are many more uses cases, this is just one of them. Beyond dashboard, we have the ability to run reports against public cloud services, generate alerts on them, and use the vROps Troubleshooting Workbench throughout our hybrid cloud environments.