VMware

vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0 Release Notes

vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0 | 19 November 2012

Last Document Update: 19 November 2012

What's in the Release Notes

The VMware® vFabric™ Hyperic® 5.0.0 release notes cover the following topics:

What's New in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0 and Hyperic HQ 5.0.0

The following sections detail key changes in Hyperic 5.0.0:

Changes in Supported Environments and Configurations

In Hyperic 5.0.0 the matrix of operating systems, machine architectures, and JRE versions that Hyperic components support is changed. See Supported Configurations and System Requirements in the Hyperic documentation.

Hyperic Database Runs on PostgreSQL and vFabric Postgres

Hyperic 5.0.0 supports PostgreSQL and vFabric Postgres 9.1.x. The installers in vFabric Hyperic and Hyperic HQ contain a migration utility for upgrading a Hyperic Server instance (version 4.5 or later) to Hyperic 5.0, and migrating the content of supported external databases to PostgreSQL. See Migrate v4 Hyperic Server and Database to v5.

The regular Hyperic installation package contains PostgreSQL 9.1.4. The installer script, as in previous versions, has an option for installing an internal vFabric Postgres server as the Hyperic database. However, prior versions of Hyperic required an external database for production environments. Due to performance improvements, an internal database is now supported for production environments. Note that you can still use an external Postgres database for the Hyperic database.

Oracle and MySQL are no longer supported for the Hyperic database.

Updated Plugins

Plugins are updated as follows:

  • The PostreSQL plugin supports PostgreSQL 9 and vFabric Postgres 9.
  • The Microsoft SQL Server plugin supports SQL Server 2012.
  • The vFabric Web Server supports vFabric Web Server 5.2.

Hyperic Virtual Appliance (vFabric Hyperic Only)

Hyperic Server 5.0.0 is available as a virtual applicance (vApp). The Hyperic vApp consists of two virtual machines, one for the Hyperic Server and one for the Hyperic database. The database is vFabric Postgres 9.1.3.

The vApp packaging simplifies the process of deploying the Hyperic Server and database to virtual environments that use vSphere. You can deploy the Hyperic vApp using the vSphere client. See Install Hyperic vApp in the Hyperic documentation.

You can also create a Hyperic vApp in your virtual cloud from a vApp template using VMware vCloud Director. See Deploy Hyperic vApp with vCloud Director in the Hyperic documentation.

Improved LDAP Integration (vFabric Hyperic Only)

Enhanced support for LDAP integration streamlines the user setup process in vFabric Hyperic 5.0. vFabric Hyperic automatically creates an account for a user authenticated via LDAP and, if LDAP groups and Hyperic roles are named appropriately, assigns the user to Hyperic roles based on the user's LDAP group assignments.

AppInsight Integration (vFabric Hyperic Only)

Hyperic 5.0.0 supports integration with AppInsight, which allows AppInsight to obtain metrics for platforms that are managed by vFabric Hyperic.

VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite Integration (vFabric Hyperic Only)

vFabric Hyperic 5.0 is part of the VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite. vCenter Operations Manager obtains and presents metric data from Hyperic, and Hyperic honors the vCenter Operations Management Suite per-VM license scheme. vFabric Hyperic 5.0 does not support per vRAM or per CPU licensing schemes. The vCenter Operations Management Suite license key must be installed on the Hyperic Server platform. See Configure vCenter Operations Management Suite License.

Issues Fixed in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0 and Hyperic HQ 5.0.0

Issues Fixed in Hyperic HQ 5.0.0

The following fixes were made to Hyperic HQ 5.0.0. (These fixes also apply to vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0.)
  • Availability Reporting Issue. In previous releases of Hyperic, when a Hyperic Agent was unavailable, the platform it monitored was also reported to be unavailable, even if it was in fact available. In Hyperic 5.0 this problem is solved for Hyperic-managed vCenter environments. If a Hyperic Agent managing a vCenter instance is unavailable, the Hyperic Server can determine the availability of the VMs administered by the vCenter instance directly from vCenter. For this reason VMware recommends that the Hyperic vSphere plugin be enabled in all vCenter environments. For information about Hyperic's vSphere plugin, see "vSphere" in vFabric Hyperic Resource Configuration and Metrics.
  • SQL Query Metrics (HHQ-5577). In previous releases of Hyperic, when multiple plugins used SQL to collect metrics, incorrect metrics were reported due use of a connection that was not thread-safe. This problem is resolved in Hyperic 5.0.
  • SSL Private Key (HQ-5570). In previous releases of Hyperic, the Hyperic Agent would not start when using a custom private key other than "hq". This problem is resolved in Hyperic 5.0.
  • Favorite Resources Portlet Resource Alert Counts (HHQ-5526). In Hyperic 4.6.5.1, the Favorite Resources Portlet displayed incorrect alert counts for resources because resources were sorted alphabetically by name, and alerts were sorted according to when the affected resource was added to the portlet. This problem is resolved in Hyperic 5.0.
  • Metric Indicators Configuration (HHQ-5614). In Hyperic 4.6.6, after metrics were configured as indicators, it was not possible to configure them to not be indicators. This problem is resolved in Hyperic 5.0.
  • List Filtering on Group Add page (HHQ-4565). In Hyperic 4.6.6, on the Group Add page, filtering by resource name did not work. This problem is resolved in Hyperic 5.0.
  • Escalation Scheme Editing (HHQ-5610). In Hyperic 4.6.6, it was not possible to edit an Escalation scheme; the message: "Error undefined -- undefined" was displayed. This problem is resolved in Hyperic 5.0.
  • Password Encryption (HQ-4097). In Hyperic 5.0, the cryptographic algorithm used for password encryption in Hyperic was modified to meet the meet VMware Product Security Policy.

Issues Fixed in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0

In addition to the fixes made to Hyperic HQ 5.0.0, vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0 includes these fixes:
  • Plugin Manager Agent Sync Count (HQ-3812). Upon upgrade to Hyperic 4.6.5, the Plugin Manager did not display the correct number of Agents that were synchronized with the Hyperic Server. This problem is resolved in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.
  • Group of Groups Membership (HQ-3902). In Hyperic 4.6.5.1, the members of a group of groups and the number of group members were not displayed correctly on the Resource > Browse page. This problem is resolved in vFabric Hyperic 5.0..
  • Operations Center Sorting (HQ-3829). In vFabric Hyperic 4.6.6.1, when the "Resource Details" table was sorted by the "Duration" column, the sort order was incorrect. This problem is resolved in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.
  • Report Center 403 Error (HQ-3716). In vFabric Hyperic 4.5.2 and 4.6, the Report Center displayed a 403 after generating reports. This problem is resolved in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.

Known Issues in vFabric Hyperic 5.0.0 and Hyperic HQ 5.0.0

The following sections detail key issues in Hyperic 5.0.0:

Password Change Issue

Due to a known problem (HHQ-5498), a user with the Super User role cannot change a user's password without knowing the user's current password.

Hyperic Server Installation Failure on Windows Server 2008 SP1

Installation of the Hyperic Server on Windows Server 2008 SP1 fails if the internal database option is selected.

Workaround: Before installing the Hyperic Server, install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86) on the target host. Download the package from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29.

Deleting Resources Empties the Auto-Discovery Queue

Due to a known problem (HQ-3927), deleting a resource from inventory causes any resources currently in the auto-discovery queue to be removed from the queue and from the Auto-Discovery portlet of the Dashboard. The resources will reappear in the portlet when they are next auto-discovered and added to the queue.

Deleting Platforms in Large Environments Causes Errors

Due to a known problem (HHQ-5518) in a large Hyperic deployment, deleting many platforms at once from the user interface can result in orphaned resources, browse errors, incorrect results in the user interface, and under some circumstances, a stack trace.

The following message in server.log indicates that this error condition has occurred:

05-04-2012 13:10:54,185 EDT ERROR [tomcat-http--19] [org.hyperic.hq.ui.util.UIErrorHandler@49] An exception was thrown for the following request URI
'/resource/group/monitor/Visibility.do':
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.hyperic.hq.bizapp.server.session.MeasurementBossImpl.findGroupCurrentHealth (MeasurementBossImpl.java:3204)

If you experience this problem, contact VMware Global Support Services.

Control Actions Not Supported for JBoss 7

Due to a known problem (HQ-3998), the Hyperic JBoss plugin does not provide control action functionality for JBoss 7 servers.

Hyperic vApp Database Not Monitored (vFabric Hyperic Only)

Due to a known problem (HHQ-5667), the Hyperic vApp does not automatically monitor the vFabric Postgres-based Hyperic database.

Workaround: Contact VMware Global Support Services for a workaround.

Intermittent Operations Center Error (vFabric Hyperic Only)

Due to a known problem (HQ-3915), the Operations Center page intermittently is empty and displays "Sorry, an error occurred." A stack trace is written to server.log when the error occurs.

Torn Down Resources Remain In Hyperic Inventory (vFabric Hyperic Only)

If vFabric Hyperic and AppInsight are integrated, when a cloud application monitored by AppInsight is torn down, the application resources should be removed from Hyperic inventory. This process does not occur correctly in the following scenarios:

  • When AppInsight and vFabric Hyperic are not communicating. Due to a known problem, when either AppInsight or the Hyperic service is down, or the AppInsight Hyperic adapter is not connected to Hyperic, the resources associated with a torn down cloud application are not removed from Hyperic inventory.
  • When AppInsight did not discover resources that Hyperic discovered. If an application in Application Director contains platforms that were discovered by Hyperic, but not by AppInsight, upon teardown, only those application resources known to AppInsight will be removed from Hyperic.

Workaround: In both scenarios, manually remove from Hyperic those resources that should have been removed but were not.

IP Reuse in New Deployment Prevents Resource Auto-Discovery (vFabric Hyperic Only)

If vCloud Director allocates an IP address to a VM in an application that is currently associated with an existing resource (platform) in Hyperic, the Hyperic Agent will not auto-discover the platform, servers, and services associated with the IP address.

Workaround: Prior to deploying the application, remove Hyperic resources that are currently associated with the IP address to be reused.