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vBenchmark

vBenchmark

Version: 1.0.2 • File Size: 859 MB • 4/3/2012 • Technical Preview License
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Summary

Have you ever wondered how to quantify the benefits of virtualization to your management? If so, please consider using vBenchmark. vBenchmark measures the performance of a VMware virtualized infrastructure across three categories:

  • Efficiency: for example, how much physical RAM are you saving by using virtualization?
  • Operational Agility: for example, how much time do you take on average to provision a VM?
  • Quality of Service: for example, how much downtime do you avoid by using availability features?

vBenchmark provides a succinct set of metrics in these categories for your VMware virtualized private cloud. Additionally, if you choose to contribute your metrics to the community repository, vBenchmark also allows you to compare your metrics against those of comparable companies in your peer group. The data you submit is anonymized and encrypted for secure transmission.

Key Features:

  • Retrieves metrics across one or multiple vCenter servers
  • Allows inclusion or exclusion of hosts at the cluster level
  • Allows you to save queries and compare over time to measure changes as your environment evolves
  • Allows you to define your peer group by geographic region, industry and company size, to see how you stack up

What’s new in version 1.0.2

  • Fixed bugs that prevented some customers from deploying vBenchmark appliance with vCloud Director and vCenter Server 4.0
  • Fixed a bug that caused network settings not to persist after the reboot
  • You can change the network configuration of the VM via the web interface, please point your browser to https://ip.address:5480
  • Updated VMware Tools

What’s new in version 1.0.1

  • Added a checkbox to include or exclude vCenter license keys when submitting the data to the community repository
  • The application now listens on port 443 (https), requests to port 80 will be automatically redirected to 443
  • The appliance will now prompt you to change the root password at first logon
  • Fixed bugs that prevented some customers from proceeding to the dashboard when they have ESX 3.x hosts in their cluster or are using vCenter credentials that did not have access to the full inventory
  • vBenchmark application log is now written to the VM serial port. If you are using the VMX package, the serial port output will be redirected to a file named vBenchmark.log in the virtual machine folder. If you are importing an OVA or OVF, you need to manually add a serial port device and specify a filename.

Additional Information

vBenchmark Frequently Asked Questions

Read the Frequently Asked Questions PDF

System Requirements

vBenchmark is packaged as a virtual appliance with the following configuration:

  • vCPUs: 2
  • vRAM: 1.5 GB
  • vHDD: 5 GB

Compatible Browsers:

  • Firefox 9+ (Windows)
  • Firefox 5+ (Linux)
  • Chrome 12+ (Windows & Linux)
  • Safari 5+ (Mac)
  • Internet Explorer 9+ (Windows)

Instructions

There are 3 deployment options for vBenchmark:

  • OVF: can be deployed directly to vCenter server 4.x, 5.0 and vCloud Director 1.x
  • OVA: can be deployed on vCenter server 4.x and 5.0
  • VMX: can be opened in VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion and VMware Player.

Once the virtual appliance has been deployed and powered on, you can access the vBenchmark application from a web browser by entering the IP address of the virtual appliance.

Video

Change Log

Engineers


Krishna Raja

Works in the Performance group.


Ravi Soundararajan

Works in the Performance group.

Jessica Feng

Jessica Feng

Works in the Infrastructure Product Marketing group.

Michael Huang

Michael Huang

Works in the Infrastructure Product Marketing group.

Add Comment

86 thoughts on “vBenchmark”

  1. KC Ong

    Deployed vBenchmark OVA 1.0.2, but queries on our vCenter 5.1 always return “No valid data found”.
    Anything I missed?

    Reply ↓
  2. Saad Aftab

    I have deployed vBenchmark OVA 1.0.2 in our environment. As of now, the appliance is Setup, and have run vBenchmark couple of times. However, on the Share tab when I try to Check Connection, it fails and gives the following error:

    “Unable to validate connection to VMware server, please check network settings and try again”

    I have also configured IP, Subnet, Gateway, DNS, Proxy parameters into the appliance by running the command:

    /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net

    Any ideas what might be causing this?

    Reply ↓
  3. Mike Sokolowski

    Perhaps I am just missing something, what credentials do I put in the Share tab under “Configure Network Settings for Data Excahnge”?

    Everything else was cake to setup

    Reply ↓
    1. Krishna Raj Raja

      You don’t need to provide any credentials to share your data unless you have to go through a proxy server that requires logon credentials.

      Reply ↓
  4. Joe Uselding

    I am having issues installing this under ESXi 5.0u1. I am attempting to deploy the OFV via vcenter but I never get prompted to add the network settings. I have tried the OVA and OFV without any luck, am I doing something wrong?

    Reply ↓
  5. Rahul Kapoor

    Hi,

    I am the product manager for vBenchmark and am currently assembling a panel of customers whose feedback will direct the product’s future roadmap. If you have been using the product and can devote some time for a phone interview, please drop me a line at rkapoor@vmware.com.

    Best Regards
    Rahul Kapoor

    Reply ↓
  6. RSjouw

    Hi,

    I’m trying to share the metrics withing vbenchmark,but am no able to get vbenchmark to accept the TMG proxy config we have. The logging in the TMG shows vBenchmark connecting sucessfully, but the request send to the TMG is only for a address, there’s no GET PUT ore someting similair. The request is sucessfull, as said, but vBenchmark says the connection could not be verified.

    The request from the TMG log is for roitco.vmware.com:443, as said no PUT GET or similair action.

    Any Ideas ?

    Reply ↓
  7. Dwayne

    Today, VM’s/CPU are reported but I wanted to know if we can also add VMsCores – There is a fine balance between optimal sockets (cpu’s), cores, and ram per server per $$

    When comparing statistics across customer internal departments, its unclear on the dashboard virtualization optimization when cores are not considered.

    Thank you.

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul Kapoor

      Hello Dwayne,

      I am the new product manager for vBenchmark and would like to know more about this use case, i.e., why you want core information in vBenchmark. Could you please send me direct email to vbenchmark@vmware.com with more information.

      Thanks.

      Reply ↓
  9. alain lafreniere

    Hello all,
    I wonder how you all got it to work.
    I did download and try to install each of the 3 files. One at a time.
    I did download the OVA first, unzip it and try to open it with”deploy OVF template” in vcenter 4.xx.
    Unable to open because no vmx file in it.
    I then download the ovf file, unzip it and try to open it with”deploy OVF template” in vcenter 4.xx; received an error message that line 119 to line 122 got an unsupported element”extraconfig”. so it doesnt work.
    I download the vmx file and try to convert it with ovf converter to no avail.

    So how do any of you where able to use this?

    Alain

    Reply ↓
  10. Joe

    Does the memory utilization section account for HA? If the report shows 50%,is that 50% of overall pRAM remaining or 50% after HA has taken it’s slice for admission control?

    Reply ↓
  11. JC

    Hi,
    just a heads-up if you deploy version 1.0.0 using dhcp with integrated DNS, then it might get you in trouble as the host name of the vApp is localhost which will create a localhost.dhcp-dns.xyz DNS entry.

    I do not know if this was addressed in 1.0.1. – my suggestion would be to use something like venchmark as the host name.

    JC

    Reply ↓
  13. MikeJ

    I set up vCenter installable applicance and was running it under the evaluation license. vBenchmark won’t work against this version. It fails silently but I was told that the application “encountered a license edition in your inventory with a NULL value.”

    Waiting to see if the next version will resolve this. Definitely a want and not a need! Thanks for everything so far.

    Mike

    Reply ↓
  14. Daniel

    Need a console user and password with root-privileges for a security check of this appliance. Does anyone know it?

    Reply ↓
  15. Zoltan

    Nice fling. Two small bug:
    - If I export the data to CSV with ‘Export application data tables’ and set the delimiter to semicolon, then in the data semicolon is used as a separator, but the field titles row keeps using the default coma.
    - As reported by others, if the network configuration are changed after the initial setup on the console, the changes are not kept after a reboot.

    Reply ↓
  16. Vivek Sarmalkar

    I have deployed the OVF and can get into the web interface just fine. I have added a single vCenter server and domain credentials. When I initiate a query, it brings up the next window where it is retrieving data. that eventually disappears and it drops back to the initial screen.
    vCenter 4, 258672

    Reply ↓
    1. Krishna Raj Raja

      Vivek,

      we have noticed this behavior happening under two scenarios
      1) The login credentials that you are using does not have FULL access to the vCenter inventory: This can happen even for accounts with administrator privileges that do not have access permission to some objects in the inventory

      2) Your vCenter instance is managing ESX 3.5 hosts or one of your ESX host is using evaluation license.

      We are working on a fix to address both the issue.

      Reply ↓
  18. Constantin

    Hi there,
    i cant exchange the data, always getting error.
    Also it seems not working with Forefront Proxy & Authentication. With Squid its ok, but then always error in sharing group peer data…..
    1331633249.692 518 localhost.domain.info TCP_MISS/200 8406 CONNECT roitco.vmware.com:443 – DIRECT/173.203.164.91 -
    1331633249.699 26993 localhost.domain.info TCP_MISS/200 8406 CONNECT roitco.vmware.com:443 – DIRECT/173.203.164.91 -

    What to do? I can’t access the console becasue there is no root password in instructions.
    Preview all data is about ~ 25kb.

    Reply ↓
  19. Daniel Pfuhl

    Hi,

    connection test via our proxy is working fine.
    Nevertheless I get an error while trying to share the peer group data.

    Found the information to look into catalina.out but I can’t access the console. I do not remember that I set an root pw :-/

    daniel

    Reply ↓
        1. Andreas Peetz

          Any news with this issue? I also get the “Error sharing peer group data” although the connection test was succesful. What is the default root password? I need to log in to the console as root to check the log file catalina.out, right?

          Andreas

          Reply ↓
          1. Michael Huang

            Daniel and Andreas, are you guys still having difficulties with data exchange in latest versions? Just posted 1.0.2 today, please download and try it out

            Reply ↓
            1. Russ

              I just downloaded and installed the 1.0.2 version and I get the error in sharing peer group data. Please try again later. I select the check connection and it syas success. There is no proxy server or anything preventing the machine from connecting to the Internet.

              Reply ↓
              1. Nonna

                I am on the same boat – version 1.0.2. network test successful. but getting error sharing peer group data

                Reply ↓
  20. Ravi

    For those of you that don’t get any data back after you input your credentials, we think we might have found the problem. You need at least read-only access to _all_ the objects in your inventory. If you do not have access to certain entities, then the code will not return data. We are working on a fix.

    Reply ↓
    1. Raj

      Didn’t work for me. Tried giving the AD user “All privileges”. also a local administrator user an administrator role in both vcenter servers in linked mode. All I get is some java class error in the tomcat log. I can paste the error here if you want.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mark

        I had this issue and specifically created a read only account on the server and gave ONLY ready only rights from the data center level down and it works now. I’ve also now tested with an AD account created only for ready-only access with the same result.

        Reply ↓
        1. Raj

          Yep. That was the issue. Just a read-only permission worked for me but not all privileges or administrator permission. Hope they will fix this.
          Thanks once again.

          Reply ↓
        2. Krishna

          Any user account will work as long as the user has access (system.view privilege) to *ALL* the objects in the inventory. You could have an user account with administrator privilege but that user could also could have “No Access” permission to some objects in the inventory, in that case that user account wont work. When you create a new user account with read-only permission, you are also granting read-only access for the entire tree in your inventory and that is why the read-only account worst. Hope this clarifies. In a future update we will ignore objects for which the user does not have permission and present the stats for only the accessible objects, however please be aware that this may not give a complete picture of your inventory as we will be excluding some items.

          Reply ↓
  22. raj

    I have to change the ip details of the appliance after it was build.
    If i use the Configure Network within the appliance to change the ip adress and Default gateway, it works for some time and then it gain reverts back to its old ip address.
    I am not sure why it is doing this. Also there is absolutley no docs explaining how to change the ip address after initial build – loggin information, files to changes etc.

    Reply ↓
  23. Mat Kryszkiewicz

    vNice fling. I like the GUI very much, intuitive, responsive and no java and flash. Cudos for dev team :)
    One request i could have is for export option that includes all the nice graphics form the GUI so you can CRTL+V it to docs (I know there is csv option).

    Reply ↓
  24. Maik

    When I try to participate in the peer group data exchange, I always get the error “Error in Sharing Peer Group Data”. I do not use a proxy server, the machine has a direct HTTP(S) connection to the Internet. Anyone else having the same issue and maybe a fix for this?

    Reply ↓
      1. ColinS

        I’ve just installed 1.0.2 and have the same issue. I can supply a log if you provide instructions.

        Reply ↓
          1. Russ

            I did a search through the entire virtual machine for a file called catalina.out and there is nonw.

            Reply ↓
  25. Mike Evans

    I have deployed the OVF and can get into the web interface just fine. I have added a single vCenter server and domain credentials. When I initiate a query, it brings up the next window where it is retrieving data. that eventually disappears and it drops back to the initial screen. Anyone else experience this issue?

    Reply ↓
    1. Mark Iveli

      I have the same issue. Data retrieval completes without error or output. Running the VMX in workstation against 1 vcenter. Any advice?

      Reply ↓
        1. Krishna

          Mike, Mark, Fernando

          Can you provide details on the browser and vCenter server version that you are using. It will help us to reproduce the problem internally.

          Reply ↓
  26. Graham

    Some interesting figures, but I don’t like the idea of uploading my keys anywhere. More than willing to upload the aggregate data one the uploading of the keys are removed.

    Reply ↓
  27. Peter

    I deployed the OVF version on vCenter 5 running on vSphere 5. I can connect to the web interface just fine, I enter the information for a vCenter, and run the tool. When I initiate a query status screen shows up for about 30 seconds with an arrow half way through the query phase, but then the box just disappears. No error messages, no indication that anything is wrong except nothing happens.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michael Huang

      Hi Peter, we’ve made some updates in code in latest versions. Please try version 1.0.2 posted today

      Reply ↓
  28. Rick

    Keep getting “No Data” error when running against vCenter 5.0.0-455964 & vCenter 4.1.0-345043 but it seems to work against vCenter 4.0.0-208111. I’ve tried with several differnent accounts with different permissions all the way from administrator to read-only.

    Reply ↓
  29. Hersey Cartwright

    Downloaded the fling, interesting. Like the compare with your peers piece.

    One thing I think would improve things is to break physical CPUs into the number of cores. Wouldn’t this align better when analyzing against best practices? I believe the recommended/best practice is 4-8 vCPUs per CPU core.

    Just think it might be more helpful to see number of VMs (or maybe vCPUs instead of VMs) per core instead of per physical CPU socket.

    Great piece of fling. Thanks.

    Hersey

    Reply ↓
    1. Krishna

      Hersey,
      Thanks for your feedback, glad you are liking the fling. I agree with you that it would be useful to show VM density per core, we can consider this for the update release.

      Reply ↓
      1. Conrad E

        I’d argue that just the number of CPUs (and not cores) is acutally misleading these days, especially when you’re comparing to “peer groups”. You may not be comparing apples to apples!

        Reply ↓
    1. Krishna

      Chris, we will update the appliance to use https for the front-end user interface. The back-end code that does the data submission to the community already uses https.

      Reply ↓
  32. Doug Davis

    Can’t get this to work for some reason – put in the appliance just fine, connect to the web interface & add one of my vCenter servers to it – it tries to connect and the either just stops of says ‘unable to establish a session’.

    Reply ↓
      1. Duco Jaspars

        Fixed now
        For some reason (need toi check) my network settings where kind of mixed up

        When I went to network settings in the console, I noticed my domain name was specified where my nameservers had to be specified …. So vCenter name could not be resolved which caused the connection error.

        Will redeploy to see if it was user error

        Reply ↓

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