Month: December 2020

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November 2020 Sprints

November 24  – Collector 3.2

Hi everyone, we just went live with Collector 3.2.. major highlight being able to run the tool in local and remote mode for Hyper-V environments Hyper-V local support :
  • Collector now supports running the tool against a Hyper-V cluster directly from the Hyper-V hosts locally. UI has option to choose from Hyper-V (local) and Hyper-V (remote)
  • Collection can be done by downloading the tool in any of the hosts which are part of the cluster we wish to collect data from and choosing Hyper-V local in the drop down menu.
  • With both remote and now local collection option, it provides for greater flexibility in switching the mode in case of connectivity/access issues with remote setup. (particularly for Hyper-V as it connects directly to cluster hosts and not management APIs unlike vCenter)
  • This version supports Hyper-V clusters for both local and remote mode. Support for standalone Hyper-V hosts (not part of a cluster) is in plan.
Precheck  :
  • A precheck script is bundled within the tool which can run a few checks to see if the expected services are available and if other prerequisites are satisfied.
  • Upon running into the error screen, the tool will redirect to the script location which can be run on the host to get the relevant data
Usability :
  • The login page now has a drop down to choose the flow that is, vCenter, Prism, and Hyper-V (remote) and Hyper-V (local), and the default ports are populated upon selection.
  • VM Summary table – shows both consumed and provisioned storage across all the cluster VMs
  • The tool now accepts hostname (apart from host IPs) for connecting to the Hyper-V host instance is now supported. The previous limitations have been removed.
  • Improved error messages/log enhancements
We now have a dedicated Collector page with the latest 3.2 bits and documents – User Guides, Release notes , here :
https://portal.nutanix.com/page/downloads?product=collector
November 19
We went live with the latest sprint, below the major highlights.. Proposals:
  • Updated slides on quarterly financials w/Q4
  • Now includes the Backup cluster / DR cluster details along with primary  workload cluster, includes the config details and utilization dials
  • HW spec slide added for NX-Mine specific appliance : a subset of the standard NX HW spec
Sizing enhancement:
  • SQL workload supported on Nutanix clusters on AWS
Usability:
  • Bulk Edit: I/O input fields option added for bulk edits for Server Virtualization and Cluster sizing(Raw)
  • Storage calculator updates including new drive options – 16TB HDDs [support for 320TB nodes]
  • Validator support for new NEC and KTNF platforms
  • Changes to Solutions summary UI – Cluster in a separate row/ consistent with workload summary UI
  • New partner roles added for partner specific HW vendor visibility
Product updates:
  • HPE DX: New AMD platform support – DX325 Gen10 8SFF
  • mCPU/lCPU-DIMMs rule update for across vendors
  • Dell XC:  GPU with NVMe restrictions removed, now both can be in same config

November 3

Hi everyone, we went live yesterday with the current sprint, below the major highlights:GPU Dials:
  • You will see a 5th set of dials- for the GPU – (for nodes/workloads) requiring GPUs, of course.
  • The dials show the utilization %age and cluster fail over considerations just like for cores, ram etc.
  • The additional dial will feature in the BOM as well for GPU workloads
320 TB node support
  • For Objects and Files Dedicated workload, the node limits now go up to 320TB(HDD)/node
  • The total capacity(including the SSDs) can go up to 350TB [16TB x 20 + 7.68TB x 4]
  • HPE DX4200 supports this configuration currently and is supported in Sizer
Collector/RVTool import filter
  • During import, Sizer will filter out the CVM VMs while running Collector or RVTool against a vCenter managed Nutanix cluster.
  • CVM resources are added by Sizer anyway so this will help avoid double accounting .
  • For Prism managed Nutanix clusters, the CVMs are filtered out by Collector itself.
Platform updates:
  • Two new NEC platforms : NEC Express R120h-1M & R120h -2M
  • A new vendor got added this release – KTNF with their server model: KR580S1-308N
  • New server platform for Inspur  : InMerge1000M5S
  • Updates to Fujitsu,Dell XC and Lenovo platforms