Ask the Expert: VCE Vision Intelligent Operations Software

Welcome to this Ask The Expert event on VCE Vision Intelligent Operations Software. The ATE begins today (Monday, January 18) and will conclude on Friday, January 29. Please feel free to begin posting your questions!

Greetings experts,

What are some features that customers welcome most from this software and how does it compares to others in the market?

How does the software know that new updates are available and my current infrastructure is due for an upgrade ?  If you get that information using some formal channels like ESRS, how would that work at dark sites ?

Do you have hooks into application layers, say i want to run Cerner and EPIC. What is considered good response time for one application could be not acceptable to another. Can i set my own thresholds on different KPI's ? 

If i am buying converge infrastructure from VCE, i expect this software to be included in the package.  You are selling me infrastructure in a box, i don't have to buy yet additional software to manage it all.  

Thank you for the great questions.   Here are comprehensive answers:

Answers to Question Group 1: VCE alerts customers when new firmware and hypervisor software releases (i.e., VCE Release Certification Matrix Content) have been pre-tested, certified for interoperability and made available.  Customers can then download a description (i.e., an RCM Profile) of the new set of releases and use the VCE Vision dashboard to run an assessment on their VCE Systems to validate which system components (e.g., storage arrays, compute blades, switches, hypervisors, etc.) require upgrades to the new releases.  The RCM Profiles and the new releases are downloaded from the VCE Download Center in the VCE Support Portal.  Also, because dark sites are on private networks, the RCM Profiles and the new releases themselves can be manually downloaded onto a trusted computer that has Internet access and then installed manually by connecting to the dark site.

Answers to Question Group 2: Instead of out-of-the-box hooks into third-party applications, like the Cerner and Epic applications that you mentioned, VCE Vision Software has an open API along with a Software Development Kit and sample code which can be used to create integrations.  Out-of-the-box, VCE Vision Software does, however, display the status of the hypervisor, network, compute, and storage infrastructure layers, and lets you know which infrastructure components support each workload (i.e., virtual machines).  So far, our software development has focused on delivering KPIs in selectable time-series increments and enabling browser-style search across multiple VCE Systems, including advanced query according to selectable operands and parameters.  Currently, we are examining our customers' KPI analytics and thresholding requirements -- and how we can add value beyond third-party monitoring tools which the VCE Vision Software API can integrate with -- to guide the long-term development strategy of our software's health KPI capabilities to be announced in the future.

Answers to Question Group 3: Currently, VCE Vision Software consists of three modules, two of which are included in the sale of all new VCE Systems.  A third module is priced separately and optional.  The two included modules are the VCE Core Platform (providing discovery and a multi-system dashboard) and the RCM Compliance Management Module (providing firmware/hypervisor software release certification assessment).  The optional component is the Security Compliance Management Module.

Are there any plans to align the Visions management pack for vRops development with the Visions core product and VMware's vRops product? Vision MP is currently supporting vRops 6.1 only when connected to Visions 2.x.

This Ask the Expert event has officially ended, but don't let that retract you from asking more questions. At this point our SME are still welcomed to answer and continue the discussion though not required. Here is where we ask our community members to chime in and assist other users if they're able to provide information.

Many thanks to our SMEs who selflessly made themselves available to answer questions. We also appreciate our users for taking part of the discussion and ask so many interesting questions.

ATE events are made for your benefit as members of ECN. If you’re interested in pitching a topic or Subject Matter Experts we would be interested in hearing it. To learn more on what it takes to start an event please visit our Ask the Expert Program Space on ECN.

Hi Richard.  Here are some additional resources as well.  These would be at a very high level:

Hope that helps!