EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance Version 2.0 SP1: New features and changes

EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance Version 2.0 SP1 brings the following enhancements to the PowerPath Virtual Appliance web console.

A new tab named PowerPath Monitor added. Includes:

• PowerPath Monitor > Group/Host view lists all the PowerPath hosts under corresponding groups. Physical PowerPath hosts are organized under their corresponding user-defined host groups (created from the inventory tab) and ESXi hosts are grouped under the corresponding vCenter to which they belong.
• PowerPath Monitor > Group/Host > Summary view Provides host monitoring capabilities including device/path monitoring. The monitor displays PowerPath volume, path, and bus details.
  Healthy state:
  

  Degraded:
  

• PowerPath Monitor > Group/Host > LUN view similar to PowerPath Viewer, LUN view adds Queued IO value displayed under LUN view, (not available with PowerPath Viewer).
  
• PowerPath Monitor > Group/Host > BUS view shows the association between HBA Ports > Array > Array Ports along with the IOs queued for the bus.
  
• EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance capabilities available as a plug-in for VMware vCenter: PowerPath Virtual Appliance supports script plugins on vSphere vCenter 5.5 and above (only vCenter Web Client is supported). vCenter plugin provides a minimal view of the PowerPath Virtual Appliance GUI. The script plugin is registered and enabled on the vCenter server. It can be accessed via the short cut “EMC PowerPath/VE License Manager” in vCenter web client. Only the details of ESXi hosts belonging to the current instance of vCenter are displayed.
  
  Registering EMC PowerPath vCenter Plugin:
  • Click on Register vCenter Plugin;
  • Accept vCenter Server certificate if required;
  • By default script based plugins are disabled in vCenter Web Client. To enable script the plugin on vCenter server follow these steps:
    • Edit the webclient.properties file, and then append the following line at the end of the file (if not already added):
      scriptPlugin.enabled = true
      You can locate the webclient.properties file in the following locations of the vCenter server:
      • On vCenter server 5.x:
        • VMware vCenter Server Appliance: /var/lib/vmware/vsphere-client
        • Windows 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%Application DataVMwarevSphere Web Client
        • Windows 2008/2012: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%VMwarevSphere Web Client
      • On vCenter server 6.0.x:
        • VMware vCenter Server Appliance: /etc/vmware/vsphere-client/
        • Windows 2008/2012: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%VMwarevCenterServercfgvsphereclient
    • Restart the vSphere Web client service on the vCenter server.
      • On Windows-based vCenter appliances, restart the service with name vSphere Web Client
      • On Linux-based vCenter appliances, run /etc/init.d/vsphere-client restart
  • Access the plugin after registering and enabling it. Use the short-cut, EMC PowerPath/VE License Manager, located in the vCenter Web client.
    
    Note
    If you use the default self-signed certificate of Virtual Appliance, open the PowerPath Virtual Appliance GUI in a new tab in order to accept the certificate before accessing plugin via the vCenter web client.
• Minimum configurable polling interval for PowerPath/VE changed to 10 minutes.
  Navigate to System > Settings, adjust polling interval if required
  
• Added polling capability for PowerPath/VE 6.0 and later hosts – based on events.
• Direct upgrade support from EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance 2.0.0.
  See EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance Upgrade from 1.2.x -> 2.0.0 and 2.0.0 to 2.0.1 for details.
• Added user interface enhancement for Context menu option in PowerPath Monitor tab for inventory management
• Enhanced back-up and restore capability of EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance inventory.
  The EMC PowerPath Virtual Appliance Installation and Configuration Guide provides more information.
• Added new fields in REST API response for host including:
  • osVersion: Version of OS running on the host
  • hostStateTimestamp: Time when the host state was updated in PowerPath Virtual Appliance
  • deadPathCount: Total number of dead paths in the host
  • totalPathCount : Total number of paths in the host
  • totalVolumeCount : Total number of volumes in the host
  • degradedVolumeCount: Total number of degraded volumes on the host
• Support for RTOOLS 6.0 SP1
• Queued IO count has been added in the response for Path REST API

Documentation:

• PowerPath Virtual Appliance 2.0 and Minor Releases Release Notes
• PowerPath Virtual Appliance 2.0 and Minor Releases Installation and Configuration Guide

Enjoy!