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vROPS 6.6 architecture components

Abhijeet D
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In vROPS 6.0, new platform design was introduced by VMware to meet below listed goals.

  • Treat all solutions equally and manage both VMware and third party solutions.
  • Highly scalable platform with minimal reconfigurations and redesign requirements
  • Monitoring solution with native high availability
Following diagram shows components of vRealize Operations Manager 6.6.
 
Let’s talk about each of these components in detail.
 
Watchdog:
  • It maintains the vROPS Services/Daemons.
  • Watchdog attempts to restart any vROPS daemon in case it is in failed state.
  • vcops-watchdog python script runs every 5 mins to check vROPS services.
  • Watchdog service checks include:
    • PID file of service
    • Service status
Apache2 HTTPD:
  • Provides backend platform for tomcat instances which provides vROPS UIs.
User Interfaces:
  • In vROPS 6.6, user interface is broken into two components
    • Product UI
    • Admin UI
Product UI:
  • Hosted by Pivotal tc Server (Apache Web server)
  • Can be accessed using https:///ui/login.action
  • Except remote collector role, this UI is present in all server roles (Master, Replica, Data Collector)
  • Primary purpose of product UI is to make GemFIRE calls to controller API to access data and create views, Dashboards or reports.
Admin UI:
  • Hosted by Pivotal tc server (Apache Web server)
  • Used to perform administrative tasks using HTTP REST calls to admin API
  • Can be accessed using https:///admin 
Suite API:
  • It is a public facing API
  • Used for Automation or scripting of common tasks.
  • Also used by vROPS for administrative tasks.
Collector:
  • Responsible for pulling inventory and metric data from configured sources using data adaptors.
  • After collecting data, collector contacts GemFIRE locator to locate one or more Controller Cache servers.
  • Then Collector connects to one or more Controller cache servers and sends collected data.
  • The collector sends heartbeat to controller every 30 seconds via HeartbeatThread process (Max 25 data collection threads) which runs on collector.
GemFIRE Locator:
  • Runs on Master node and Replica node.
  • On data collector and remote collector, GemFIRE runs as client process.

GemFIRE: 

  • VMware vFabric GemFIRE is an in-memory, low latency data grid.
  • Runs in same JVM as the controller and analytics.
  • Scales as needed when nodes are added to cluster.
  • GemFIRE allows caching, processing, and retrieval of metrics
  • Dependent on GemFIRE locator
Controller:
  • It’s a sub-process of analytics process.
  • Monitors collector status every 1 minute.
  • Controller node runs HeartbeatServer thread which processes heartbeats from collector.
  • Responsible for co-ordinating activities between cluster members.
  • Manages storage and retrieval of inventory objects within system.
  • Leverages MAPReduce function (Google also uses same function for search results) for selective query and faster results.
Analytics:
  • Analytics layer is responsible for:
    • Metric calculations
    • Dynamic threshold
    • Alerts and Alarms
    • Storage and retrieval of metrics from Persistence layer
    • Root Cause Analysis
    • HIS metadata calculations and object relationship data.
  • Analytics works with GemFIRE, Controller and persistence layer 
  • Responsible for generating SMTP/SNMP alerts on Master and replica node.
Persistence layer:
  • Also known as Database layer.
  • This layer consists of series of databases each performing different functions as per role.
  • There are five primary database services 
    • Cassandra DB:
      • Introduced in vROPS 6.1
      • It is a Apache Cassandra DB
      • Replaces Global xDB in earlier versions
      • Stores all settings that are applied globally (CONTENT folder).
      • Designed to handle large structured data across multiple nodes.
      • Provides HA with no single point of failure
      • Highly scalable.
      • No Sharding is used by this DB
      • Stores below content
        • User preferences and configuration
        • Alerts Definition
        • Customizations
        • Dashboards, Policies and view
        • Reports, licensing
        • Shard maps
        • Activities
    • Central DB:
      • It is a PostgreSQL DB
      • Also called as REPL
      • Sharding is used by this DB
      • Exists only on Master node and Replica Node when HA is enabled
      • Accessible via port 5433
      • located at /storage/db/vcops/vpostgres/repl
      • Stores resource inventory information only.
    • Alerts/HIS DB:
      • Also called as Data
      • It is a PostgreSQL DB
      • Stores Alerts and Alarms history, history of resource property data, and history of resource relationship. 
      • Exists on Master, Replica and Data nodes
      • Accessible via port 5432
      • Sharding is used by this DB.
      • Located at /storage/db/vcops/vpostgres/data
    • FSDB:
      • FSDB is a GemFIRE Server which runs inside analytics JVM.
      • FSDB contains all raw time series metrics and super metrics data for resources.
      • It stores data collected by data adapters.
      • Also stores data calculated or generated after analysis
      • FSDB uses sharing for distributing data for new objects
      • FSDB is available on Master, Replica and Data collector nodes in vROPS
      • Sharding is used by this DB
    • CaSa DB:
      • Also called as HSQL
      • It is a small, flat, JSON-Based, in-memory DB
      • Used by CaSA for cluster administration 
      • Sharding is not used by CaSA DB
 

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