Performance monitoring for virtual server storage takes an application approach

As mentioned a couple of times before, performance monitoring of virtual server storage is extremely important to maintain smooth and healthy virtual environments,  by avoiding probable performance-related blunders that could occur. Performance monitoring can be applied in two distinct methods, either as per-VMs or per-applications installed. With increasing developments and advancements, performance monitoring can now be done through application-based third-party tools instead of applying particular gauge storages or physical host performance to VMs. Vendor Companies such as VMware and BlueStripe Software Inc are developing several tools and software(s) which regularly analyze and record a performance on your VM and present insightful metrics and analysis which allows you to manage your server storage accordingly.

Using virtualization-aware storage for per-VM statistics

As manually performing performance analysis is a fairly complex task, the demand for virtualization-aware performance monitoring tools and technology is rising at a swift speed in the market however, due to the lack of options in this field, this market for virtualization-aware performance monitoring tools is becoming increasing underserved

Currently, the VMware vSphere client dominates this market as it is one of the only providers of quality performance statistics for individual virtual machines, physical hosts etc. Moreover, the VMware vCentre server (acquired from B-hive network inc.) also offers specialized tools and other detailed per-VM statistics options for users to analyze their virtual environments thoroughly.

Storage for virtual environments needs better performance monitoring

Performance monitoring allows users to gain more insights and information about their virtual machines.  In recent times, out of many third-party tools, application performance monitoring (APM) is gaining high popularity and is also growing as the ‘preferred’ analysis tools amongst VM users. Other than high-end and sophisticated insights and per-VM statistics, APM also allows the user to not only understand the issue in their virtual machine but also allow IT admins to get to the root of it and solve the due problem.  Some of the best APM software are Epsagon, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, Tivoli Management software etc.

Performance monitoring in VMware virtual environments

In reference to VMware virtual environments, performance analysis and monitoring become highly pertinent. In terms of the process, data collection and analysis of the VM begins with the ESX host, hypervisor. When all the statistics and insights are collected, this data package is forwarded to the virtual centre which now has a full report of your VMware virtual machine on your selected timeline (seconds, minute-to-minute, day-to-day or even month-to-month. However, when the data is transported to the virtual centre, the admin needs to make sure that the SQL server is running, in order to make sure that the data is rolled smoothly.

Tools used to monitor the performance of storage for virtual environments

In particular, VM admins working in Linux environments can implement an analysis tool known as ESXTop which provides information about the CPU, disk and network activity. However, the downside of this tool is that it overloads your system with a lot of data and statistics, some of which are not particularly required. For this, admins can also use another tool known as ESXplot which employs a .csv file to project better performance monitoring of your virtual machine. Nevertheless, admins who need more information, inside-out of their virtual machines, can go for vCentre Operations manager which provides very detailed information and insights for your VMware machine, so much so that it projects a thumbnail/still image of your virtual machine when you are not using it! However, it definitely costs more and may need some expertise to install and use

References

http://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/searchStorage/downloads/Storage%20for%20virtual%20environments%20guide.pdf