VMware vCenter AppSpeed Release Notes

The release notes contain the following:

• VMware vCenter AppSpeed 1.0 Features
• Other VMware vCenter AppSpeed 1.0 Documentation
• System Requirements for VMware vCenter AppSpeed
• Installation Notes
• Known Issues

VMware vCenter AppSpeed 1.0 Features

VMware vCenter AppSpeed provides proactive performance management and service-level reporting for applications running within virtual appliances. By analyzing the traffic that flows between end-users, web applications, and back-end servers, AppSpeed provides visibility into multi-tier applications and enables rapid identification of performance issues originating from inadequate resource allocation and application problems. AppSpeed features include:

• Simple Deployment Process
• Easy to install
• Self-configuring solution
• AppSpeed discovers, monitors, and reports within minutes of download.
• Self-Learning Technology – AppSpeed detects virtual and physical infrastructure elements and presents them in a logical application flow map from servers down to database tables and queries.
• Monitoring of Compliance with Service Level Agreements
• AppSpeed monitors the real-time end user experience for all transaction requests, breaking down performance from tier to tier.
• Real-time metrics are compared to service level targets (baselines are automatically established based on application behavior).
• AppSpeed generates real-time events in response to transaction-level performance and availability issues. Optionally, email notifications can be sent when events are generated.
• Improved consolidation ratios – Real-time metrics are compared to service level targets (baselines are automatically established based on application behavior).

Other VMware vCenter AppSpeed 1.0 Documentation

VMware vCenter AppSpeed Installation Guide

VMware vCenter AppSpeed User's Guide

System Requirements for VMware vCenter AppSpeed 1.0

AppSpeed is supported for the following ESX and vCenter versions:

• ESX, version 3.0x, 3.5x or 4.0
• vCenter Server, version 2.5x or vSphere 4.0

In addition, the successful installation of the AppSpeed virtual appliance, plug-in, and probes requires that the following prerequisites be met:

• Admin level access to vCenter Server for the automated installation process
• SSL private key is required for HTTPS sites that AppSpeed is to monitor.
• In addition, administrator privileges are required on the VI client machine to install Adobe Flash Player 10.

The following system resource requirements must be met:

• Server
• 30GB HDD
• 2 vCPUs
• 4GB RAM
• Probes
• 5GB HDD
• 1 vCPU
• 0.5GB RAM

Installation Notes

The AppSpeed virtual appliance must be installed on an ESX host that is managed by vCenter Server. For additional details, see the VMware vCenter AppSpeed Installation Guide.

Known Issues with VMware vCenter AppSpeed 1.0

Server Installation

• Harmless [FAILED] messages are displayed when starting up an AppSpeed machine.
• When you run setup with new vCenter login and password parameters, if the vCenter password is empty, the old password is kept instead.
  Empty passwords are not legal in vCenter 2.5 and above.
• You cannot install AppSpeed server on one vCenter and monitor another vCenter.
  AppSpeed server must exist on the vCenter.
• From the second setup and onward, there is a long delay at the beginning of setup, after the first ENTER and until the first question appears.
• If you are required to use a domain to log in to vCenter, the domain should also be entered in setup.
• In rare cases, AppSpeed server starts up without a network connection (meaning that the Connect check box is not selected in the virtual appliance settings) and with a blank network label.
  Manually select the network label and the Connect check box.
• It is impossible to enter the vCenter name in setup. You must enter the vCenter IP address.
• There is no facility for uninstalling the AppSpeed vServer installation.

UI Installation

• Loading the AppSpeed plug-in for the first time may take 20-30 seconds.
• Loading the AppSpeed plug-in for the first time does not work if the user does not have administrator privileges.

Probe Deployment

• After a probe is deleted, its directory sometimes remains on the storage server.
• When installing a probe on disconnected storage, the following message appears: Invalid configuration for device '1'.
• If a probe installation fails (as indicated in the Probes Management window of the AppSpeed Administration module), the failed probe is not automatically deleted.
  Select the probe and click Delete Probe in the user interface.
• In rare instances, probe deployment creates a probe with 8 NICs and 3 hard disks.
  Although this is unlikely to adversely impact AppSpeed performance, VMware recommends that you delete the probe and install a new one.
• Sometimes, two folders are created instead of one for a deployed probe.
  Do not remove any of the folders.
• When you try to deploy a probe on a disconnected host, an Internal error message appears (without additional details).
• VI client inventory allows manually starting probes before their deployment is complete, which causes a kernel crash.
  Probes start automatically once deployed. There is no need to manually start them.
• There is no automatic verification that there is enough disk space before deploying probes.
  The following notification regarding the probe's deployment appears: probe name already exists for another machine.
• If AppSpeed server is installed storage with non-ASCII characters, probe deployment will fail.
• If you click Cancel in the Recent Tasks view while deploying a probe, the probe status gets stuck at 4% in the AppSpeed Probes Management window.
  Restarting AppSpeed changes the probe status to failed.
• The AppSpeed probe template snapshot is automatically created for probe deployment.
  This snapshot can be removed at any time, however it is recommended that you keep the snapshot until the initial probe configuration is complete.
• In some cases, the following message appears when probe deployment fails: Failure due to malformed requests from the server.
  Remove the failed probe and redeploy it. If the probe deployment gets stuck, restart AppSpeed from the server console and try again.
• If probe deployment fails, it is sometimes necessary to manually removed the linked-clone machine.
• In vSphere, when the Enable individual virtual machine automation levels feature is disabled for a cluster, the probes' coverage of traffic may be unpredictable.

User Interface

• Supported resolutions are: 1280 by 1024 and 1600 by 1200
• The following message appears in the user interface:
  Attempted to read or write protected memory.
  This is related to high memory consumption. Reopen the VI Client.
• In some cases, it is impossible to save export data in CSV format.
  This is usually due to renaming the file without giving it the .CSV extension.
• Column names are cut off in the Real Time States graph in the view and in the exported image.
• The AppSpeed icon appears when you log in to ESX using the VI Client although AppSpeed is only available when you log into a vCenter.
• In some cases, time frame selection might suffer from limited functionality. For example, time cannot be selected prior to AppSpeed server installation.
  Use the Last/By option to set the time frame as close as possible to the time frame you want to display.
• Connection via proxy with authentication is not supported.
• A popup message appears constantly in the Mail Notification view after pressing Apply with empty DNS Server field, until new data is entered.
• The list of virtual machines and applications displayed by AppSpeed reflects the current mapping status regardless of the selected time period.
• The error popup External component has thrown an exception is related to high memory consumption.
  Re-open the VI Client.
• If vCenter is configured to work with port other than 80,the UI might not connect.
  If this occurs, refer to the Troubleshooting Guide for detailed instructions.
• User interface functionality may be limited when taking snapshots.
• When you manually rename an application, each application must have a unique name.

Mapping

• Diffie-Hellman-based applications are not supported.
• EXCHANGE applications are partially monitored.
  Only Outlook direct connections to an EXCHANGE server are monitored.
• AppSpeed does not learn and monitor virtual machines that have fault tolerance enabled.
• AppSpeed does not learn and monitor applications or servers that use IPv6.

Interoperability

• AppSpeed server does not handle IP address changes well (due to DHCP or for any other reason).
  If the AppSpeed server IP address changes, remove all probes, run setup in the AppSpeed server and redeploy the probes.
• AppSpeed server time is synchronized with the ESX.
  To maintain consistent time, the AppSpeed host needs to be synchronized using NTP.
• Probes are installed as pinned; therefore, when entering Maintenance mode on a host, any probes installed on that host need to be manually powered off.
• The VMotion of an AppSpeed server over hosts with different time settings might cause time jumps in the AppSpeed server virtual machine.
  This might result in inaccurate monitoring data for that point in time. If time moves backward, some of the data is erased. If time moves forward, there is a gap in the monitoring data.
• Manual migration might fail with a warning if the AppSpeed server has a snapshot.
  Remove the snapshot of the AppSpeed server using the snapshot manager in the vCenter before performing migration.
• After migration to ESX 3.0, the following warning might appear in VIC events log:
  The virtual machine has virtual NIC devices with non-consecutive device unit numbers. Migrate to an ESX 3 host would cause one or more of the virtual NICs to lose network connectivity.
  This has no known impact on the virtual machine.
• AppSpeed probes might unexpectedly restart if the host times are not synchronized.
• The AppSpeed probe might monitor management traffic if the probe's NIC is connected to a promiscuous port group or if the entire switch is configured in promiscuous mode.
  To avoid this, change the switch definitions.

General

• After restoring a state from an AppSpeed server that was installed on a different vCenter than the designated AppSpeed server, the user interface does not load.
  To reload the user interface again, run the vCenter_Settings command from the console and enter the new vCenter parameters.
• Delete probe leaves the dedicated AppSpeed port group on hosts even after the last probe that uses the port group is removed.
  The port group can be manually removed.
• There is no progress bar for the following actions in AppSpeed Probes Management view: delete probe, power on, and power off.
  As a result, although it takes time for the actions to complete, it appears as if the action was performed immediately.
• The AppSpeed virtual machine name might not completely match the hostname.
  The hostname is always in lowercase letters and might change special characters to "-" .
• It is impossible to completely block root login through AppSpeed server command line console.
• In rare cases, the virtual machine of AppSpeed server or AppSpeed probe might become read-only.
  When you connect to the virtual machine, a Read-only file system message appears.
  In the case of an AppSpeed probe virtual machine, the probe needs to be deleted and redeployed. In the case of an AppSpeed server virtual machine, all probes need to be deleted, the AppSpeed server needs to be reinstalled, and the probes need to be redeployed.
• There is no notification, other than in AppSpeed logs, if AppSpeed disk is full.
• When a new password for vCenter is entered using the vCenter_Settings command, there is no indication to the user of the entered characters.
• Probe status may be down in the Management Probe view even though it receives traffic.
  Log in using the console and restart AppSpeed.
• When deleting a probe, an error might appear in the Recent Tasks window and in the Probe Management window even if the probe is deleted successfully.
• Harmless failure messages may indicate that the following VMware Tools failed to start: Guest memory manager, Guest VMsnet; Guest operating system daemon.
  VMware Tools load successfully.
• AppSpeed VMware Tools version upgrade is not automated.
• The database might become corrupt when state reset is performed on the AppSpeed server.
  To fix this, run setup on the AppSpeed server.