Create a new view in vRealize Operations to show powered off VMs

After several large data center migrations to consolidate our data centers, we realized we had a lot of leftover garbage in the vCenters that was moved as part of our project. We needed a quick way to view VMs that had been powered off for a long period of time, in our case over 180 days. This would tell us the VM had been off for at least 6 months and most likely was no longer being used. So I created a new view in vRealize Operations to show us just that!

The New View in vRealize Operations

We start by logging into vROPs and going to Visualize -> Views

new view

Then we need to create a new view to give us our data. Give the view a name and we want to select “List” as our presentation. Our subject will be “Virtual Machine”. Now that data is where we get to the good stuff. Let’s start with our first metric “Summary|Reclaimable Powered Off”. This is going to be the star of the show and allow us to gather the powered off data.

Powered Off Metric

We want to set the Transformation of that metric as Average and No Timestamp. Then you can go to the Time Settings tab and select “Relative Date Range”. This will tell it how many days you want to get from our view. For example, mine is set for 180 days.

Time Settings

You can skip Breakdown by as we don’t need to change anything there. Now Filter, is where we need to filter out our powered off metric. We only want to show those VMs that are off for our time frame set in the last step. You want to add the metric -> Summary|Reclaimable Powered off -> Minimum -> is -> 1.

metric filter

Once you have added that, you’re done. You can play with the time settings to adjust to your needs and add any other filters you think are helpful. For example, we have added filters to ignore templates, and ignore certain tags that we know are VMs that are exceptions to the powered off cleanup.  Creating a new view in vRealize Operations doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Play with it for a while and try to get the data you need. The most important pieces are the metrics you use and how you filter out the data.

Upgrade vRealize Suite LifeCycle Manager vRSLCM

Welcome back to VirtualBarker! It’s been quite a while since I posted something new. I’m trying to get back into the blogging world again and devote more time to writing up new posts for you all. Enjoy this new read and there will be more posts coming again soon. Let’s get started on this one, upgrading your vRSLCM!

Let’s log in and check for updates

Log in to vRealize LifeCycle Manager (vRSLCM)

Once logged in, select Lifecycle Operations from the main page

Lifecycle Operations

Once in Lifecycle Operations, you will see a notification bell at the top. If there are updates available, it will alert you here.

Lifecycle Operations notifications

After selecting the notification that a vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager update is available, it will bring you to the System Upgrade page in Settings.

vRSLCM Upgrade

Select “Check For Upgrade”

vRSLCM Upgrade

When that is done it will show you that there is an available update

Taking a snapshot and updating vRSLCM

Next, you can create a snapshot from within Lifecycle Manager before performing the Upgrade.  Select the vCenter name where the LCM appliance lives and the vCenter credential to use. The credentials are stored in your LCM locker.

vRSLCM Snapshot

You can view the status of the snapshot by clicking the link “Click here to check request status”

vRSLCM Snapshot
vRSLCM Snapshot

Once that is done, we will select upgrade and run through the process

vRSLCM Upgrade

It will run a pre-check and then allow you to upgrade. Be sure to check “I took a snapshot”

vRSLCM Upgrade
vRSLCM Upgrade

It will start to down the packages needed

vRSLCM Upgrade

When the upgrade is complete (takes 10-15 minutes), the appliance will restart

Verify vRSLCM update

When logged back in, we can go to settings

vRSLCM Settings

Then go to System Upgrade and you can see the upgrade history showing you the version it upgraded from and the version it upgrade to. You will also see a notice that the LCM successfully upgraded.

vRSLCM Upgrade

That’s it! We’ve upgraded our vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. Now for each upgrade, you just rinse and repeat!

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