VMware vCenter Operations
Automated Operations Management for Virtual and Cloud Infrastructure

Overview:

VMware vCenter™ Operations provides automated operations management using patented analytics and an integrated approach to performance, capacity and configuration management. The focus of vCenter Operations is to provide the intelligence and visibility needed to proactively ensure service levels, optimum resource usage and configuration compliance in dynamic virtual and cloud environments

Key Benefits

• Actionable intelligence to automate manual operations processes
• Visibility across infrastructure and applications for rapid problem resolution
• Proactively ensures optimal resource utilization and virtual and cloud infrastructure performance
• At a glance view of operational and regulatory compliance across physical and virtual

VMware vCenter Operations provides automated operations management in three editions that cover virtual, physical and cloud environments.

What is VMware vCenter Operations?

VMware vCenter Operations is an automated operations management solution that provides integrated performance, capacity and configuration management for highly virtualized and cloud infrastructure. Deep VMware vSphere™ integration provides the most comprehensive management of VMware environments. VMware vCenter Operations is available in three editions. VMware vCenter Operations Standard is purpose-built for VMware administrators to more effectively manage the performance of their VMware environments as they move to the private cloud. VMware vCenter Operations Advanced provides performance and capacity management for large virtual and private cloud infrastructure. VMware vCenter Operations Enterprise is for IT operations teams to more proactively manage the performance, capacity, configuration and compliance of mission-critical applications and services and the hybrid (virtual and physical) infrastructures they run on. VMware vCenter Operations integrates directly with third-party monitoring tools for a complete view of your infrastructure.

How is VMware vCenter Operations Used?

VMware vCenter Operations uses patented analytics and powerful visualizations to automate performance, capacity and configuration management. It collects and analyzes performance data, correlates abnormalities and identifies the root cause of building performance problems. VMware vCenter Operations provides capacity management to optimize resource usage and policy-based configuration management to assure compliance and eliminate sprawl and configuration drift.

IT operations and infrastructure teams leverage vCenter Operations to:

• Eliminate manual effort—Analytics and policy-based approach automate performance, capacity and configuration management
• Proactively manage virtual infrastructure performance—Get proactive warning of performance issues before problems affect end users
• Ensure operational and regulatory compliance—Manage compliance automatically with a policy-based approach and out-of-the-box configuration templates
• Optimal resource utilization—Ensure right-sized virtual and cloud infrastructure through comprehensive capacity management

Key Features:

Intelligent Automation

Patented analytics provide actionable intelligence across the stack to automate manual processes for maximum efficiency and agility.

• Infrastructure and operations analytics eliminate timeconsuming problem resolution processes through automated root cause analysis.
• On-demand analytics allow optimization of the IT infrastructure without 'tribal knowledge.'
• Capacity analytics eliminate the need for spreadsheets, simple scripts and rules of thumb. "What if" capacity planning scenarios don't require time-consuming model updates.
• Capacity analytics allow identification of overprovisioned resources so they can be right-sized to make more efficient use of compute power.
• Automated provisioning and configuration analysis detects unwanted changes and helps IT maintain continuous compliance with operational best practices and regulatory requirements.

Comprehensive Visibility

Powerful visualization of performance, capacity and configuration issues and risks enable visibility into dynamic infrastructure and applications for rapid problem resolution.

• VMware vCenter Operations provides cross-team views for real-time performance, capacity and configuration management.
• Performance data is abstracted to health, workload and capacity risk measures that allow IT to efficiently identify building performance problems with less effort.
• Out-of-the-box templates to ensure continuous compliance with security best practices, hardening guidelines and regulatory requirements.

Proactive Management

An integrated approach to automating operations in the face of growing service level expectations and accelerating change allows IT to be more proactive and ensure optimal performance.

• Self-learning performance analytics identify building performance problems before they affect end users.
• Identifies capacity shortfalls before they affect end users.
• Real-time, integrated dashboards of performance, capacity and configuration change events allow a proactive management approach and help ensure service level agrements (SLAs) are met.
• Assures compliance with policy control across all

Screenshots:

Learn more about key features with screenshots for VMware vCenter Operations Standard.

How to Buy:

VMware vCenter Operations Enterprise Standalone License available. Please contact us.

VMware vCenter Operations is available in three editions to help you automate operations management.

VMware vCenter Operations Standard

Purpose-built for VMware administrators to provide more effective management of small and medium sized vSphere environments.

VMware vCenter Operations Advanced

Provides performance and capacity management for large VMware virtual and private cloud infrastructures.

VMware vCenter Operations Enterprise

Provides proactive management of the performance, capacity, configuration and compliance of mission-critical applications and the hybrid (virtual and physical) infrastructures they run on. VMware vCenter Operations integrates directly with third-party monitoring tools for a complete view of your infrastructure and applications.

vCenter Operations Editions - Feature Comparison

 

	Standard	Advanced	Enterprise
Target Environment	vSphere (up to 1500 VMs)	vSphere	Heterogeneous
Performance Management
Alerting and Visualization
Consolidated Health dashboard
Actionable health scores & KPIs
Top N priority views
Self learning behavior
Dynamic Thresholds
Early warning visualizations
Predictive 'Smart' Alerts
Alert lifecycle mgmt
Custom alerts
Email & SNMP notifications
Analysis & Troubleshooting
1 click root-cause dashboard w/ KPI history
Impact detection (Health trees)
Behavioral performance/workload analysis
Multiple KPI anomaly correlation
Contextual event overlays
HeatMap library
Cross Team views & enablement
Role based access & SSO
Actionable operator views
Problem isolation tools
Report by Custom Groups
vSphere awareness
Multi vCenter support
Integrated into vSphere Client
vSphere Inventory & dependency aware
Support for Reservations & Limits
Capacity Management
Capacity Awareness
Past, present, future capacity summaries
Current capacity bottlenecks
Future capacity shortfall notifications
Alerts on capacity conditions
Schedulable Capacity Reports
Report across multiple vCenters
Capacity Optimization
Analyze & trend resource wastage
Identify over-allocated, idle VMs
Identify under-utilized hosts, clusters
Identify waste from snapshots, templates, orphaned VMs
Recommendations to reclaim resources
Recommendations to rightsize
Capacity Planning & Forecasting
Estimate remaining capacity
Estimate time remaining to full capacity
Forecast demand & supply
Trend Utilization vs demand
Trend Utilization and allocation
Replenishment recommendations
Interactive What-if modeling
Support for vSphere storage
Support for Peak usage
Support for Business time zones
Cross Team views & enablement
Role based access & SSO
Actionable operator views
Report by Custom Groups
Infra. utilization trend views for Upper mgmt
Supply forecast for provider teams: Storage, Network, Build
Usage & Optimization views for LOB
Cloud capacity reports for Provider & Tenants
Report customization
vSphere awareness
Integrated into vSphere Client
vSphere Inventory & dependency aware
Support for vCloud objects(vDCs)
Support for Thin Provisioning
Support for Reservations & Limits
Support for Linked Clones
Support for HA, FT
Configuration & Compliance Management
Configuration Visibility
Configuration and change visibility
Centralized dashboards
Out of box Reports
Change alerts
Continuous Compliance
Guest Compliance
Host Compliance
vCenter Compliance
Standard Regulatory compliance (SOX, HIPAA, DISA, ISO, BASEL II, PCI DSS, NIST)
Custom policy compliance
Automated compliance violation detection
Compliance remediation recommendations
Compliance remediation automation
Automated Provisioning and Patching
Manage OS distribution centrally
Discover new systems, build/deploy via PXE
Provision ESX/ESXi to "bare metal"
Provision OS to bare metal & VMs
Build and deploy software packages (Windows)
Connect to compliance policies
Automatically detect missing software
Remediate non-compliant systems
Distributed software repository
Cross Team Views & enablement
Role based access control
Active Directory integration

Support:

VMware Production Support & Subscription

Technical Support, 24 Hour Sev 1 Support -- 7 days a week.

Focused, 24-Hour Support For Production Environments

• Global, 24x7 support for Severity 1 issues
• Fast response times for critical issues
• Unlimited number of support requests
• Remote Support
• Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
• Product updates and upgrades

Overview

VMware Production Support is designed with your production environments in mind. Our global support centers are staffed around the clock to provide you access to our industry-leading expertise in virtualization and years of experience supporting virtual infrastructure products in real-world customer environments. We are committed to delivering enterprise-class, worldwide support with a single objective in mind: your success.

VMware Basic Support & Subscription Service

Technical Support, 12 Hours/Day, per published Business Hours, Mon. thru Fri.

Weekday Support for Test, Dev and Non-Critical Deployments

• Global, 12x5 access to support
• Unlimited number of support requests
• Remote Support
• Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
• Product updates and upgrades

Overview

VMware Basic Support is designed for non-critical applications and platforms that require support during normal business hours. Our global support centers have been strategically placed to provide you with fast and efficient access to the support center in your region. Each center is staffed with engineers that can provide industry-leading expertise in virtualization and years of experience supporting virtual infrastructure products in real-world customer environments. We are committed to delivering enterprise-class, worldwide support with a single objective in mind: your success.

Feature	Production Support	Basic Support
Hours of Operation	24 Hrs/Day 7 Days/Wk 365 Days/Yr 1	12 Hrs/Day Mon–Fri 1
Length of Service	1 or 3 Years	1 or 3 Years
Product Updates	Yes	Yes
Product Upgrades	Yes	Yes
Products Supported	All Products (excluding VMware Fusion and Player)	All Products (excluding VMware Fusion and Player)
Method of Access	Telephone/ Web	Telephone/ Web
Response Method	Telephone/ Email	Telephone/ Email
Remote Support	Yes	Yes
Access to VMware Web site	Yes	Yes
Access to VMware Discussion Forums and Knowledge Base	Yes	Yes
Max Number of Support Admins per Contract	6	4
Number of Support Requests	Unlimited	Unlimited
Target Response Times Critical (Severity 1 Major (Severity 2) Minor (Severity 3) Cosmetic (Severity 4)	30 minutes or less: 24x7 4 business hours 8 business hours 12 business hours	4 business hours 8 business hours 12 business hours 12 business hours
Business Hours North America and Latin America Alaska, Hawaii South America (NASA) Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA Asia, Pacific Rim, Japan (APJ) Australia/New Zealand	Monday - Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time zone) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (EST/EDT) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (GMT/GMT+1) 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Singapore Time) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Sydney AET)	Monday - Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time zone) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (EST/EDT) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (GMT/GMT+1) 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Singapore Time) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Sydney AET)

1Hours of operation for Gemstone are Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (PST/PDT) globally.
1Hours of operation for VMware Go Pro and vCenter Protect products are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (CST/CDT), except holidays.
1Hours of operation for VMware IT Business Management and IT Financial Management are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (EST/EDT/GMT) except holidays.
1Hours of operation for Socialcast are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT).

Documentation:

Download the VMware vCenter Operations Datasheet (PDF).