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!

The next generation of vSphere is coming!

Project Pacific

The next generation of vSphere is coming! Save the date for March 10

VMware executives & Kubernetes pioneers join forces to help you unlock the potential of your team to accelerate digital innovation in a multi-cloud world.  This will be a streamed event from VMware executives as they review how the next generation of vSphere will help with the multi-cloud world.


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Certification Upgrade Policy Update

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Along with the change in the recertification policy in February 2019, VMware has introduced a couple of easier ways to upgrade your previous certifications. The different upgrade paths for 2020 will be listed on our website within the next few weeks; this blog will help outline the general upgrade policy that you will see reflected The post Certification Upgrade Policy Update appeared first on VMware Education Services.


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Introducing the new DRS logic and UI including VM DRS scores

Introducing the new Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) logic and UI including VM DRS scores

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The first release of Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) dates back in 2006. Since then, the data center and workloads have changed significantly. With the latest release of VMware Cloud on AWS, revision M9, we introduce the new DRS UI that accompanies the improved DRS logic that was already introduced in release M5. The new and The post Introducing the new DRS logic and UI including VM DRS scores appeared first on VMware vSphere Blog.


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Introducing 2020 VMware Certifications and Badges

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The new 2020 VMware Certifications and Badges are now available. With the year designation, it becomes clearer when you earned it and how current your expertise is. The credential you earn depends on when you complete the requirements. If you met all the requirements in 2019 (starting on January 16, 2019 – ending December The post Introducing 2020 Certifications and Badges appeared first on VMware Education Services.


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Application Discovery in vSphere with VMware Tools 11

Application Discovery in vSphere with VMware Tools 11

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The holidays are just around the corner and hopefully everyone is taking some time off to spend with their families, I know I certainly will! As I start to wind down 2019, I like to use this time catch up on things in my backlog that I was not able to get to in the […]


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Five Tips for a Successful BYO vSAN Cluster

Five Tips for a Successful BYO vSAN Cluster

Five Tips for a Successful BYO vSAN Cluster

Guest blog author Sidharth Swami wrote this article. He is a Sr. Technical Account Manager here at VMware. As such Sidharth spends a lot of time with customers in real-world environments. Thank you, Sidharth, for sharing your time and expertise regarding build-your-own (BYO) vSAN clusters. vSAN Turn-key Appliances and vSAN ReadyNodes are Recommended One of the many The post Five Tips for a Successful BYO vSAN Cluster appeared first on Virtual Blocks.


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Migrating a Datacenter using Veeam Backup & Replication

I recently had the privilege to write an article for Techgenix on using Veeam to migrate a datacenter. I’ve done this process a few times now and have written for Techgenix before. So when they approached me again to write for them I thought this migration process would be good. This is my third time completing a datacenter migration using Veeam and since I had just recently finished one, the process was still very fresh in my mind. Here is my latest article for Techgenix, Migrating a Datacenter using Veeam Backup & Replication. As always, if you have any questions, please reach out. Enjoy the read!

Troubleshooting vMotion

Troubleshooting vMotion

In previous blog posts, we looked into the vMotion process and how to utilize high bandwidth networks to lower live-migration times. This blog post is dedicated to gaining more knowledge on what to do when troubleshooting vMotion if a live-migration is not working.


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