John Diaz, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, published this blog article re: vRealize Operations Manager 7.0 about two weeks ago and mentioned the missing Analysis tab:
The Best of the Rest – What Else is New and Improved in vRealize Operations 7.0
Back By Popular Demand
We heard from many customers that they really missed the “Analysis Tab” in vRealize Operations, so after a brief vacation we have brought back some of your most requested features for workload analysis and troubleshooting.
But when you read the article and look at the screenshots, it looks like they didn't really bring back the Analysis tab but kinda just a mostly-useless shell of it. They show capacity (good start), and *current* demand and usage (mostly useless), along with a bar also showing *current* demand/usage (useless). There isn't a 30-day chart showing historical demand for CPU/memory, or anything indicating peak demand (the most useful part of the Analysis tab, imo), average demand, or any recommendations. Where's the actual analysis / analytics at work here?
I wrote a response to the blog post (which I paste below), but it didn't post. I guess you can't reply to a VMware blog post without it being read and probably needing approved by marketing before it gets posted. John's article, in my opinion, is a giant swing and a miss-- they heard us complaining about Analysis being gone, but they didn't fully understand WHY we're unhappy about it, so they took a shot to frankenstein (verb) some stuff together and thought it would make us happy. No... not me.
Blog comment, which didn't post:
Sorry, but based on what I'm looking at, that's nowhere *near* bringing the Analysis tab back or what I need to see. Yes, taking away the Workload tab was also a poor and dubious decision that needed correcting... yay.
Who asked you guys to remove this stuff anyway? And are they currently unemployed?
Here's the problem...
Big picture: The people making the decisions at VMware aren't system admins who *actually* use this stuff on a daily basis, all day / every day. A web page designer presents a pretty slide in a meeting and everybody goes "Oooh, aaah, that'll look great on our sales literature"... but none of those people actually use it, so they don't understand how these decisions impact usability. Oh, they can probably click around and give a brief overview of what is what... but do they actually use it all day / every day? Do they actually use it in a real environment and understand workflow, or are they just clicking pretty web pages?
Details: For example, when I click on a VM in vRealize-- *why* do you think I'm looking there? Just for fun? No, it's for one of two reasons-- 1. Somebody's complaining that performance is taking a hit, or 2. Somebody's requested more resources for the VM. However, when I click on a VM, I'm taken to a "Summary" page with a ton of white space. The information on the old "Analysis" tab was exactly what I wanted to see all in one place: 1. Allocated CPU, 2. a 30-day CPU graph (that little hover graph in your screenshot above is a joke and is useless, and the current usage bar is equally as useless), 3. Peak CPU demand (this is the most useful part of the page!), 4. Average CPU demand, 5. Recommended CPU size... and exactly all the same stats for memory on the same page without needing to click anything else. I can immediately see if any CPU or memory problems with a glance AND I can make decisions about whether to increase resources and by how much. This information, along with probably storage stats and possibly an alert list or anomalies, should be the first thing you see when you click on a VM-- not some blank Summary tab and then you need to dig for what you're looking for.
Anyway, thanks for trying, but it's a swing and a miss on bringing the Analysis page back from what I'm seeing here. It's a big of a slap in the face to see "Better Widgets, Better Views, Better Supermetrics"... because you know what I'm thinking your sales pitch should actually read...
