SolarWinds Free VM Monitor
Tool
The great thing about this version of SolarWinds VM Monitor is that it checks Windows Hyper-V as well as virtual machines on VMware ESX Servers.
Evaluation of Solarwinds VM Monitor Especially for Hyper-V
- What the VM Monitor Does
- SolarWinds Video of VM Monitor
- Download and Install your Free VM Monitor
- Overcoming the Limitation of VM Monitor
What the VM Monitor Does
In addition to checking the status of memory and CPU utilization, you can also see if any of your VMs are down. With this Hyper-V monitor for virtual machines it’s also easy to check details of their guest operating systems.
As with most health check utilities, you get an alert when the service thresholds for your applications are exceeded. I like to check there is no performance degradation by setting the memory usage indicator to change to amber at 40% and red at 60%.
SolarWinds Video Showing Hyper-V Monitor for Virtual Machines
A good way of evaluating the VM Monitor utility is to watch Josh Stephens explain its features on this video.
Download and Install Your Free VM Monitor
Once downloaded, the install is straightforward, three clicks and you reach the first hard decision, which server to monitor? Type in the IP address, or the host name in the first box. Naturally, you need an administrator’s username and password to gain access to the data.
Observe how the hyper-v virtual machine manager reports on CPU utilization and memory used. Take advantage of the facility to set warning and critical thresholds. See screenshot to the right.
Comparing VMware and Hyper-V
The 2008 Server versions of Microsoft's Hyper-V may have the edge over VMware in end-to-end monitoring of the applications. While VMware's Storage vMotion is superior to Windows 2008 for live migration of virtual machines. It offers transaction integrity and no interruption in service.
Whether you choose VMware or Hyper-V, there is little difference in the performance of clustering or backup as both use bare-metal hypervisor. However, VMware offers VMotion storage. VMware is the market leader, and well established for Linux, but there are signs that Hyper-V may be ousting VMware for Microsoft Server 2008R2 and later operating systems.
Overcoming the Limitation of Solarwinds Free VM Monitor
The only problem with the free VM utility is that you can only track virtual machines on a single host. To keep an eye on VMs on multiple Windows or VMware servers the best solution is to upgrade to SolarWinds Virtualization Manager. While the more comprehensive Virtualization Manager is not a free product, you can get a 30 day trial to get the feel for supervising all your virtual machines from one interface.
With the ‘big brother’ Virtualization Manager you can see where resources are being wasted as well as spotting bottlenecks. This information will assist capacity planning when you need to deploy more virtual machines.
Thwack Forum for SolarWinds VM Monitor
Here at the Thwack forum is a thriving group of people who are performing network management daily. Tap into their expertise as they are performing similar tasks to yours. Therefore, don’t just look at the SolarWinds Thwack SAM forum, register and ask your questions about VM Monitoring.
Summary: Review of SolarWinds Hyper-V Monitor
One surprise of the 2010s decade is how virtual servers are mushrooming in corporate networks and in the cloud. Thanks to virtualization, companies can be more responsive to demand for network applications. There is only one downside, and that is keeping track of all these VMs – enter SolarWinds free VM Monitor.
More Free and 30-day Trial Virtual Machine Software
My recommendations for additional handy VM utilities. Many of these downloads are free, while others are fully-functional, but time limited. SolarWinds are happy to provide you with a free specialist tool, which is ideal for testing, and then supply a more comprehensive suite for larger organizations. To let you into a secret, for small networks, the free tool is all you’ll ever need.
• Virtualization Manager • VMware Virtual Machine Console • Storage Response Time Manager
• VM Console • VM Monitor for Hyper-V • Free Traffic Analyzer • Review AppInsight SQL & IIS
• VM-to-Cloud • Free WMI Monitor • SolarWinds AppStack • Wireless Heat Maps
