opvizor in RC for Free Up To 2 Hosts

opvizor has been released in RC and is currently accessible as a free SaaS solution. According to this press release, "opvizor identifies issues in virtualized environments before they can lead to loss of performance or support cases...opvizor is now offering a broad spectrum of functions – such as for instance reports, dashboard and the support of an unlimited number of hosts. In addition, early issue detection has been expanded broadly. opvizor can be downloaded free of charge from www.opvizor.com for real-life testing in your own VMware environment."

 

 

I have not had a chance to us opvizor yet, but I have filled out the form to get access to the RC. From the looks of the press release, the GUI looks very intuitive and easy to browse. The press release also has some more good things to say, "opvizor...can detect in advance when virtualized IT infrastructures are slowing down or in case of impending system failure. In many cases opvizor detects issues in VMware environments before they become dangerous, frequently making it possible to avoid support cases. opvizor is a SaaS solution that does not require local installation. Data transfer and data storage are continuously encrypted (AES 256). The release candidate from opvizor is obtainable immediately for testing free of charge at www.opvizor.com. Only versions with unlimited hosts will be charged – up to two hosts are for free. The final version of opvizor will be available as freeware and in paid versions in the first half of 2011."

 

From my 5 minutes of access so far, you have to generate system logs from the vSphere client and upload the ESX host vmsupport files one by one to opvizor. Once uploaded all the information will become available to you. There is no real time monitoring in the product. I find that a big lacking feature. Systems admins don't want to take the extra steps every day to upload files to a site to examine logs and performance. There needs to be a hook for real time monitoring. Even if you have a machine that constantly sends performance data over the wire, it's better than wasting time uploading log files. As David said, I find this product very hard to scale for any large environment.

 

After uploading a single host, I was able to look at one host and it has an easy interface to see problems and warning within you logs.

 

 

What do you think? Have you tried the product? What are your thoughts?

 

Also check out the video from the opvizor website.