vCenter Operations Manager is the product, offered by VMware in the vCenter Operations Management Suite, which delivers performance, capacity and configuration analytics for dynamic hybrid cloud infrastructures and business critical applications.
vCenter Configuration Manager automates configuration management by analyzing and correlating data across the monitored IT infrastructure (virtual and physical servers, workstations and desktop) identifying, for each tracked resource, the normal behavior of every metric (which implies a dynamic adjustment of thresholds) and then automatically recognize an anomaly. Capacity Management is provided to enable users to users to analyze, forecast, and plan the capacity needs of their virtual datacenter environment. Configuration and Compliance Management is provided by collecting, fixing, provisioning and managing configurations.
Release 5.7 introduce enhanced OS patching, a simplified and automated installation process, improved vSphere support and several other platform enhancements.
Summing up version 5.7 provides the following new features:
Enhanced OS Patching
- Dynamic Templates: introduces dynamic templates able to automatically include new bulletins and new patches that meet specific criteria
- Automatic Patch Deployment: administrators can now set up rules to automatically deploy patches, using time-based or event-based rules
- Patching Exceptions: administrators can now create exceptions for patches that are known to not work appropriately with certain applications or software
- Improved Linux/Unix Patching
Simplified Install and Setup
- Version 5.7 introduces new Installation Wizard for easier and more streamlined install process
Enhanced vSphere Support
- Performance Improvements: improvements between 75% and 87% in the time needed to collect vCenter and vSphere configuration data
- Granular Control Over Data Collections: administrators can now define collection filters to reduce the scope of how much data is collected
- New Report – Virtual Environments Virtual Devices Details
Platform Enhancements
- Improved Self-Diagnostics
- New Look and Feel to better align with the vSphere and vCenter Operations color schemes
- Support for SQL Server 2012