As businesses scale, their networks expand proportionally in size and complexity. Enterprise-class organizations and SMBs demand large-scale networks to meet growing business requirements. However, large-scale networks need a deluge of physical components, periodic maintenance, and configuration, all of which come at a cost. So, to circumvent these additional overheads, an organization's best bet is to make the switch to a virtual network.
The advent of virtual networks and virtual machines (VMs) has made lives a lot easier for businesses at all scales. Commissioning a virtual network offers a plethora of benefits, from helping save costs on hardware, cutting back on energy expenses, and streamlining disaster recovery with swift data backup to simplifying data center management. Virtual networks considerably improve IT productivity and scalability. Despite the upsides, virtual networks can be difficult to manage without the right set of tools.
Like conventional networks, virtual networks are susceptible to performance degradation unless monitored consistently. Although there are dedicated tools available in the market to manage virtual networks, most of them don't offer a comprehensive outlook on an organization's network owing to the tight integration between virtual and conventional networks. This is precisely why a comprehensive virtual network management system is vital and works wonders for organizations.
ManageEngine OpManager is a comprehensive network management system using which organizations can control and gain complete visibility into their IT infrastructures.
OpManager's virtual network management capabilities enable businesses to manage their virtual environments by monitoring the performance, health, and availability of all their VMs. OpManager is compatible with all major virtualization vendors such as Hyper-V, VMware, Citrix Xen, and Nutanix HCI.
OpManager's VM network management functions include:
OpManager saves you the trouble of identifying every VM and data store individually. Enter the credentials of your cluster (vCenter in case of VMware) or host (ESXi, Hyper-V, Xen, or Nutanix), and let OpManager do the heavy lifting. OpManager identifies every VM and data store associated with the host and adds them to its inventory.
Even if your VMs are configured with disparate credentials, OpManager can still discover them, given that they are preconfigured as credential profiles in OpManager.
After all your virtual devices have been added in the inventory, OpManager's virtual network monitor automatically associates relevant performance monitors to the devices from its built-in device templates. With OpManager's device snapshot page, get a glimpse of the device's summary, and view all real-time data pertaining to availability and performance in one place without having to shift between multiple screens.
OpManager retrieves data from monitored virtual devices primarily through APIs (VMware API, Xen API, and Prism API). For extensive monitoring, you can also leverage SNMP/WMI/CLI protocols to fetch performance data from VMs.
With OpManager, you can associate performance monitors to VMs either from the device snapshot page or from the device templates. OpManager lets you set appropriate thresholds for performance monitors and check for violations. It also gives you the flexibility to create custom monitors in case default monitors don't suffice.
OpManager raises instant alarms after identifying faults in your virtual networks. Using OpManager, you can monitor all sorts of alarms from a single console. Acknowledge alarms that have been addressed to avoid redundant examination, escalate alarms to e-mails/IDs if they haven't been tended to, and suppress alarms for definite periods, for example, during maintenance.
OpManager also lets you broadcast generated alarms via different media such as e-mail, SMS and Slack.
OpManager renders a visual representation of your virtual networks. OpManager's topology maps paint a picture of the relationship between hosts, VMs, and data stores. OpManager also lets you track the migration of VMs across physical hosts.
One of OpManager's virtual network monitoring capabilities is its workflows. Workflows enable you to automate your mundane troubleshooting tasks effortlessly. Drag and drop tasks to be executed like maintenance, fault troubleshooting, and remediation. Powering on/off VMs, refreshing data stores, and suspending operations of VMs are some the tasks you can automate when virtual-network-specific alarms are triggered.
With OpManager's virtual network monitoring tool, you can see the resource consumption levels of your virtual machines and hosts. Track down the VMs consuming inordinate levels of resources along with the ones that are underutilized. This enables businesses to allocate resources efficiently, plan capacity, and ward off VM sprawl.
OpManager's virtual network manager gives you the flexibility to build customized dashboards with virtual-network-specific widgets. With OpManager's dedicated VM sprawl dashboard, you can monitor the resources consumed by VMs and hosts on a holistic level, and generate actionable insights to thwart VM sprawl.
These dashboards enable you to track all critical metrics from a single console without having to shift between multiple windows.
OpManager offers exhaustive reports on the historical stats of your virtual machines and servers. OpManager allows you to build your own reports and contains predefined reports such as Nutanix performance reports. These reports can be scheduled and exported in PDF, CSV, and XLS formats. OpManager's virtual network performance and health reports offer actionable insights to enable better decision making.
To learn more on how OpManager can help manage your virtual networks better, try out a free, 30-day trial, or register for a demo.
