Yesterday, VMware announced the availability of a new product, VMware vCenter Log Insight. If browsing through various ESXi and vCenter logs was turning into a nightmare for you, this will most likely ease up your work.
vCenter Log Insight comes from the acquisition by VMware last year of a company called Pattern Insight. VMware was interested in the core functionality of one of their products and integrated it into their own product line.
vCenter Log Insight is currently available as a Beta version, and is provided in the form of a 572 MB virtual appliance (you will need a My VMware account to download the beta, links are at the end of the article). Availability is planned for Q3 2013 and product should be sold either standalone or in conjunction with vCenter Operations Manager.
I’ve installed the virtual appliance in our lab and found it to be very comfortable to use, I especially enjoy the following features:
- quick and easy setup
- very clean and user-friendly UI
- the various dashboards and the ability to customize them
- the ability to search keywords across logs, which is much easier than using notepad 🙂
Here are a few screenshots:
vCenter Log Insight virtual appliance booting
Once the appliance boots, you get a VERY sexy console screen, I’m all happy inside just at the thought of it:
Console View
After a couple minutes, some data begins to be collected and analyzed. Here’s a sample of the interactive analytics view:
Analytics View
This products promises to be a very powerful aid to admins, our logs are clean for now since we reinstalled the lab a couple days ago and made some cleanup, and we expect to see more activity as users start creating VMs again 🙂
If you want to learn more about vCenter Log Insight (I know you will!):
- Read this comprehensive article by John Herlocker
- Download the beta version of VMware vCenter Log Insight here
- Install the virtual appliance
- Enjoy, and share the VMware love 🙂