Getting Started With VMTurbo

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imageWhat is VMTurbo?

Well, before we can deploy it, we kinda need to know what it is, right? VMTurbo is a company that provides a suite of products aimed at the management, optimization, and automation of your virtual environment. Basically, they’ve got a set of tools in a vApp, designed to make your life easier.

Deploying the VMTurbo Engine

At the core of the VMTurbo Suite is the VMTurbo Engine. That is, there is only a single bit to download. Additional features are enabled or disabled based on licensing. Let’s get started.

Downloading

Pop on over to http://www.vmturbo.com/products/ and pick one (any one will do, the one you pick determines the license you get). Fill out the form, and well, download & unzip the OVF:

vmturbo-2010-Nov user$ ls
vmturbo-2010-Nov.zip
vmturbo-2010-Nov user$ unzip vmturbo-2010-Nov.zip
Archive:  vmturbo-2010-Nov.zip
   creating: vmturbo-2010-Dec/
  inflating: vmturbo-2010-Dec/VMTurbo-Installation-Guide.pdf 
  inflating: vmturbo-2010-Dec/vmturbo-2010-Dec.ovf 
  inflating: vmturbo-2010-Dec/vmturbo-2010-Dec-disk1.vmdk

With that done, let’s get deploying.

Deploy the OVF

This deploys just like any other OVF:
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Note that it blows up to 16GB when thick provisioned:
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In a few minutes you’ll have a VMTurbo appliance:
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Go ahead and boot it up and we’ll go to the next step:

Set the IP

In the lab, the appliance grabbed a DHCP address:
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For some shops however, that just wont do, so, we’ll do as it says and use ipsetup/ipsetup:
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Now that we’re done there, let’s get some data collection going.

Apply the License

Before we go any further, you’ll need to apply the license you got in your confirmation email:
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Paste in your license file, hit save, and we’re ready to move on.

Start Monitoring

To start monitoring, we need to add a target:
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Note: That password really is all *’s Winking smile

After clicking save, click start to kick off the discovery & monitoring operations. Click monitor at the top, you’ll see that my lab is doing “well” but has a few areas that need to be looked at:
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Let’s dig into the VM summary to see who the biggest offenders are:
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Summary

All and all, I think VMTurbo looks excellent and was quite easy to setup. They’re currently offering the monitoring section for free, and it’s well worth looking at if you are charged with monitoring or administering your VMware environment in any way shape or form.

They do have some areas to improve on, and it will be interesting to watch them grow.

Disclosure

Prior to writing this post, I’ve both met and had a working breakfast with the good folks at VMTurbo. I’ve watched their product develop, etc. This post, as well as a few others like it, are written after having received an extended NFR license for their suite of products.

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