WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.840 Welcome back to vSphere 8 in the real world. Now we're going to discuss Solution Manager. 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:14.640 So, Solution Manager is a new feature in vSphere where it basically allows for third-party vendors to put solutions, 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.299 as well as VMware themselves on it, not only third-party, but also for third-party vendors, 00:00:18.299 --> 00:00:24.799 to create solutions kind of specific to vSphere, and they can be monitored and managed in one central place. 00:00:24.799 --> 00:00:29.059 They don't have to have all these third-party plug-ins that are managed from all these different locations. 00:00:29.059 --> 00:00:36.560 We can add a solution into vSphere and manage it through this vSphere Solutions Managers tab. 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:40.599 So, in the first summary, we can go in. We'll obviously have the product name. 00:00:40.599 --> 00:00:45.900 If it's from VMware, it would be the VMware product. If it's from a third-party vendor, like a SAN or something like that, 00:00:45.900 --> 00:00:52.400 it could have that vendor's name in there, a description of what it is, a link to the vendor's website, 00:00:52.400 --> 00:00:57.060 whatever configuration information you might have. There's some kind of GUI access that you would need to get in. 00:00:57.060 --> 00:01:02.299 So, like a link to go in and manage this solution. This is a place you can go in there and kind of manage the solution, 00:01:02.299 --> 00:01:08.360 but it might have a link to a URL for a configuration page or something like that. 00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:14.260 So, here you're seeing that first screen where this is the vSphere ESX Agent Manager. 00:01:14.260 --> 00:01:18.160 So, from here, you can go in and you can see what solution's been installed. 00:01:18.160 --> 00:01:23.000 This is a VMware solution for managing VMware agents that are on the system, 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:27.540 and it just kind of gives you a breakdown of what the product is, what their link is for the management. 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:30.500 Here you see the IP address for linking for management at the bottom there. 00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:37.599 So, then you have a monitor tab, and the monitor tab has your tasks and your events. 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:45.800 So, here, under tasks and events, if there was some kind of an event, if there was some kind of an alert that was created by the solution 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:52.400 or an alert that there was an update or something wrong with the system or an action was taken, 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:57.900 you triggered an event, you scheduled an event to happen, and it was triggered, that would be under tasks. 00:01:57.900 --> 00:02:03.199 You can see all that here. Right now, in this screenshot, there's nothing in there. 00:02:03.199 --> 00:02:09.000 No events have occurred, but had they been, you know, something triggered, this is where you'd go to look and see that. 00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:14.899 Then under configuration, you have your configurations tab. 00:02:14.899 --> 00:02:18.399 Under your configurations tab, you're going to have your agents that are going to be listed there, 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:26.600 issues that you have selected to work on, any triggering times that you have set up to be triggered on a certain event. 00:02:27.399 --> 00:02:33.000 Now, here, we're looking under our configuration, and there's nothing we can really do. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:39.600 Nothing is available for us to go in and create an action, create a certain event that happened at a certain time 00:02:39.600 --> 00:02:42.600 or to check out and, you know, dig deeper into this. 00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:45.000 And lastly, our VMs. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:54.600 So, if the solution requires a virtual appliance to run and manage that solution, which many solutions do use, you know, 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:58.199 virtual appliances for that, then the virtual appliance will be listed here. 00:02:58.199 --> 00:03:03.199 So, you'd see the virtual appliance or appliances that are used for managing that solution. 00:03:03.199 --> 00:03:06.800 And so, you'd be able to know, if you're looking at your environment, like, what are these VMs for, 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:11.000 you might go to your solutions manager and go to the VMs and say, oh, that VM is running, 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:15.399 and go to the VMs and say, oh, that VM actually is related to this solution over here 00:03:15.399 --> 00:03:19.399 that we use for managing, you know, a storage solution or something like that. 00:03:19.399 --> 00:03:21.399 So, the VMs tab is where you're going to find that. 00:03:21.399 --> 00:03:29.399 So, solutions manager is really just a nice and central place where third-party vendors and VMware 00:03:29.399 --> 00:03:32.800 can go in and register their solutions. 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:34.800 You can see all the information about them. 00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:36.199 You can see the version you're running. 00:03:36.199 --> 00:03:40.000 You can see the vendor that's distributing it, any virtual machines associated with it. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.199 You can see events that have occurred, all in one central place. 00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:48.399 You don't have to go to 10 different places and log into different pieces of glass to look for logs 00:03:48.399 --> 00:03:49.199 and things like that. 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:51.000 All the events and stuff can be listed here. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.399 So, actually, it's a pretty nice addition to vSphere.