NinjaVirtual

What is Ninja Virtual?

HP 3PAR Ninja Virtual is a simple wizard application designed to support HPs Get Virtual Guarantee program. This tool enables you to perform autonomic assessment of your customers virtualized servers environments. Data gathering for performance audit is typically a manual, tedious and lengthy task. There are many key performance indicators to collect and to interpret; this can take days in large environments. Ninja Virtual dramatically reduces the complexity to perform such an assessment with automated data collection and provides instant reporting and program eligibility status. This enables HP and HP partners to clearly illustrate compelling TCO savings and improved ROI by moving onto a HP 3PAR Utility Storage array in a clear factual manner. Ninja Virtual is an agent less standalone tool designed to run from mostly any Windows machine (see below support matrix for details). The machine can be any kind of laptop, workstation or server connected to the customers data centre network, so Ninja Virtual can connect to VMware vCenter servers to collect statistical data. The servers to be scanned with Ninja Virtual do not require any agent to be installed. Ninja Virtual connects to vCenter server over the network via vSphere API. You will need to enter the necessary credentials to allow Ninja Virtual to connect. More details on the server requirements can be found below.

System Requirements
Client Operating Systems
Windows 2008 R2 with or without SP1 Windows 7 32 and 64-bit, with or without SP1 Windows 8 Beta 64-bit

NinjaVirtual requires Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 on client machine

Target Servers (scanned by Ninja Virtual)

VMware VMware VMware VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 1 ESX/ESXi 4.1 ESX/ESXi 5.0 vCentre 4.0 1 or above

Note1: For assessment purposes only. Get Virtual Guarantee eligibility requires VMware ESX/ESXi 4.1 or above.

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Get Virtual Guarantee Customer Qualification Criteria

The following information must be provided either through the HP Ninja Virtual tool or Manual Assessment Worksheet. All averages to be measured over a minimum 5 consecutive days and no more than 30 days prior to de-installation of customers legacy storage system.

Assessment Summary
Upon successful collection of performance statistical data, Ninja Virtual provides a summary report with the program eligibility status for the scanned environment. The figure below shows a sample summary report.

You can drill down statistical data to display detailed activity charts by clicking on the gauges.

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Frequently asked questions?

Will I have to install an agent and will it require a reboot?
No, NinjaVirtual is an agent less standalone tool designed to run from a USB key. No local NinjaVirtual Tool installations or server reboots are required. The tool can be run from any laptop, workstation or server fulfilling the above requirements.

Which Key Performance Indicators NinjaVirtual monitors?

NinjaVirtual collects the following VMware performance counters for all selected hosts:

Hosts
cpu.usage.average mem.usage.average

Disks
disk.commands.summation disk.numberRead.summation disk.numberWrite.summation disk.read.average disk.write.average disk.commandsAveraged.average, disk.numberWriteAveraged.average disk.numberReadAveraged.average disk.deviceLatency.average disk.deviceReadLatency.average disk.deviceWriteLatency.average disk.kernelLatency.average

NFS Datastores
datastore.read.average datastore.write.average datastore.numberReadAveraged.average datastore.numberWriteAveraged.average datastore.totalReadLatency.average datastore.totalWriteLatency.average

Note1: The Disks and NFS datastores performance counters are aggregated to provide overall storage performance statistics. Note2: NinjaVirtual also collect datastore and disk devices capacity utilization statistics.

Does the NinjaVirtual Tool support virtual machines Raw Device Mapping?
Yes, raw device mappings LUNs are fully supported. NinjaVirtual collects performance statistics for every LUN or Disk mounted on a host, irrespective of their function (VMFS datastore or RDM)

Does the NinjaVirtual Tool support un-mounted Volumes?

The NinjaVirtual Tool does not support un-mounted volumes today and requires disks and/or NFS datastore to be presented to the ESX servers.

How does the tool differentiate between NAS and SAN attached devices?
NAS volumes and disk metrics are collected separately but aggregated in the storage performance totals. A capacity breakdown per storage type is also provided in the summary report.

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Why do we need to change vCenter historical log level?

Get Virtual Guarantee assessment requires access to certain Disk performance metrics that are not normally available with the default vCenter Log Level setting (1). When the assessment is complete, log level can be reset to default. You can use NinjaVirtual or vCenter Client to reset the historical Log Level to default.

What is the overhead/impact of the log level increase from 1 to 4?

The vCenter database size will increase. You can use the vCenter client to get the estimated database size increase.

Is the Ninja Virtual Tool a lite tool meant to open doors with our customers and to enable a more extensive session with other assessment tools?
No it is not! The whole concept of why the NinjaVirtual Tool was created is to have a real TCO conversation with our Get Virtual Guarantee program with the customer now, using real time data from their own environment and legacy configurations.

Can I send the tool to a customer?

Please do not send to a customer or prospect. The NinjaVirtual Tool should be run with us (HP or HP Partner) present on site, so we can engage in a conversation and sell our value to the customer on the efficiency savings generated by doubling the VM density with our Get Virtual Guarantee program. Sending the NinjaVirtual Tool to the customer and not being present on site with the customer defeats the whole purpose of the tool, and won't work as effectively either.

Why cant we use this tool for other hypervisors such as MS Hyper-V or Xen?
Today the Get Virtual Guarantee program is only applicable to VMware

Is there a demo mode built in the tool?

No but you can import a saved report data file in order to demo the tool

How can I get NinjaVirtual Software updates?

NinjaVirtual automatically checks for updates on a regular basis. You can also manually check for updates from the Task panel.

What network ports does it use?

NinjaVirtual uses default port 443 (HTTPS) to communicate with vCenter

Will it access my confidential data?

No. we only read file systems and devices utilization or performance statistics using standard vSphere APIs. There is no access to the files, VM and folders content.

3PAR Ninja Team, EMEA HP SD Sales Program Office HP Confidential

For More Information

For more information on HP 3PAR Get Virtual Guarantee GVG Portal Page Get Virtual Page (external web) HP internal Sharepoint links for NinjaVirtual collateral GVG Sales Portal Page (HP intranet) HP Storage Partner SmartPortal Links The NinjaVirtual on demand training and further information relating to the Get Virtual Guarantee Get Virtual Channel Portal

For technical inquiries please contact NinjaVirtual@hp.com

Troubleshooting
Enable a Debug Trace
To enable a debug trace run NinjaVirtual.exe with the /debug switch either from the command line or Windows StartMenu>Run. The debug trace file is stored in same directory as the NinjaVirtual tool executable.

NinjaVirtual Times out when collecting performance statistics

On rare occasion, we have seen vCenter database inconsistencies or MS SQL Express server issues that can cause vCenter to timeout on performance data collection retrieval. Using vCenter client, verify that you can successfully retrieve weekly performance statistics for all selected hosts.

NinjaVirtual Crashes when I attempt to start it

NinjaVirtual requires MS .Net framework 3.5 to be installed on the client machine. NinjaVirtual also requires the following assemblies (distributed in the NinjaVirtual Kit): Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll Microsoft.ReportViewer.DataVisualization.dll Microsoft.ReportViewer.ProcessingObjectModel.dll Microsoft.ReportViewer.WinForms.dll Vim25Service2008.dll Vim25Service2008.XmlSerializers.dll These assemblies must be stored in the same folder as NinjaVirtual.exe

NinjaVirtual fails to connect to vCenter

NinjaVirtual communicates with VMware vCenter server over https (port 443). Check your network configuration.

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HP Ninja Virtual Legal Disclaimer

Copyright 2012, Hewlett Packard. HP Ninja Virtual Software is copyrighted to Hewlett Packard. HP Ninja Virtual Software, or results from HP Ninja Virtual software, such as reports and analysis may not, in whole or part, be copied, duplicated, reproduced, translated, electronically stored, or reduced to machine readable form, nor transferred to any third party without prior written consent from Hewlett Packard. HP Ninja Virtual software and analysis should only be used with the HP 3PAR Get Virtual Guarantee Program. Hewlett Packard do not warrant HP Ninja Virtual software or analysis produced to be free of errors or omissions. The information is based on collected metrics of monitored servers at time of monitoring. Solution modeling results are based upon a specific set of criteria. The Ninja Virtual reports or analysis does not purport to be a design, bill of materials, budgetary estimate, or attempt to identify all components that constitute a virtual storage infrastructure solution. Hewlett Packard reserve the right to make corrections, updates, revisions, or changes to the information contained herein, but are not obligated to do so. Hewlett Packard do not warrant the material described herein to be free of patent or other intellectual property infringement. UNLESS PROVIDED OTHERWISE IN WRITING BY HEWLETT PACKARD, THE DOCUMENT AND INFORMATION AND SOFTWARE DESCRIBED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT WILL HEWLETT PACKARD, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, OR EMPLOYEES OR AFFILIATES OF HEWLETT PACKARD, THEIR RESPECTIVE OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, OR EMPLOYEES BE LIABLE TO ANY ENTITY FOR ANY SPECIAL, COLLATERAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY LIMITATION, FOR ANY LOST PROFITS OR LOST SAVINGS, RELATED OR ARISING IN ANY WAY FROM OR OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE INFORMATION OR PROGRAMS SET FORTH HEREIN, EVEN IF IT HAS BEEN NOTIFIED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE BY THE PURCHASER OR ANY THIRD PARTY AND NOTWITHSTANDING THE FAILURE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OF ANY REMEDY.

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