vCOPS Standalone Edition

[venkat1974]

What is the difference between the vAPP edition of vCOPS and the standalone version? Are there any specific use cases of vCOPS standalone version? if yes can someone provide some insight into what they are?

[jddias]

The vApp is provided for all editions (standard, advanced, enterprise and enterprise plus) while the standalone version is for enterprise and enterprise plus customers.

Differences between the two in terms of functionality/features:

- vApp has a customized vSphere UI for monitoring of vSphere infrastructure

- vApp (advanced and higher) has capacity analysis and reporting (used to be the CapIQ product, now rolled in to vC Ops)

- vApp allows for custom dashboards for enterprise and enterprise plus customers as well as additional adapters for third party

- vApp scales up to 6000 VMs (about 2 million metrics)

- Standalone does not include CapIQ capabilities, although some capacity analysis features are availble in the UI

- Standalone is highly scaleable (documentation states up to 6 million metrics)

For the most part, the standalone version is appropriate in cases where scale and use of multiple third party adapters is required.

[ysandfort]

As far as I know you can also not use the vSphere UI, which is what you get from the vApp.

So basicly the Standalone Edition is great to be used without vSphere, but integrated you are better of with the vApp.

If you need a bigger scale than the 6000 VMs you should file a SR to validate what to choose.

[venkat1974]

Firstly, thanks for the detailed explanation. So a standalone version of vCOPS is best suited for evnironments with >6000 VMs and where the metrics are >2 M, is that right?

Secondly, would the standalone be a better choice when the VI is distributed (VC Servers distributed)

[ysandfort]

Before considering the standalone I would strongly suggest to work with VMware if that is the best choice for you.

If you are above 6000 VMs you potentially have PSO or a TAM (so some kind of VMware professional services) in house, listen to their advise.

Again standalone is more like a vC Ops Framework and some functions are not available, some might be made available thru a VMware professional service implementation, otherwise you will not get any features which are included in vC Ops Standard & Advanced edition. So no automatic vSphere integration etc.

BTW: You can use remote vCenter etc. also with the vApp, nearly every second install I manage has that in use...

[jddias]

I agree, don't just assume the size of the environment dictates one or the other - your preference should be to use the vApp unless there's some particular reason that it makes more sense to use the standalone version.

Your VMware partner or sales team should be able to advise you on this once they understand your needs.