New free tool Snapshot Explorer added to Foglight for Virtualization toolkit

Snapshot Explorer completes Dell’s Free Utility Toolbox for Virtual Machine Administrators. Detect all snapshots, including orphaned snapshots, to avoid problems with performance and capacity with this 6^th utility which got added today! Foglight for Virtualization was formerly know under the name vOPS Server Explorer from vKernel. With the latest tool Snapshot explorer you can eliminate time consuming and tedious need to track snapshots manually.

The complete Foglight for Virtualization Free Edition toolbox contains up to a total of six very helpful utilities which are handy for any Virtualization Administrator around today.

The following tools are in the toolbox:

• Snapshot Explorer detects all snapshots, including orphaned snapshots, to avoid Problems with performance and capacity
• Environment Explorer provides at-a-glance information about performance, efficiency and capacity
• vScope Explorer offers immediate identification of VMs, hosts and data stores suffering performance, capacity and efficiency issues
• SearchMyVM Explorer delivers search capabilities, similar to Google, of the virtual environment
• Storage Explorer assesses storage performance and capacity across data stores and VMs
• Change Explorer lists all changes that occur in a virtual environment, and provides associated risk impact!

Virtual machine snapshots preserve the entire state of a running VM at a particular point in time. While the snapshot is active, all changes to the VM are captured in one or more delta disks. If they stay active too long, however, the delta files become too large and create problems with performance overhead and capacity.

After you download the tool you can import the OVF file by choosing Deploy OVF template from the vSphere Client. But first Unzip the compressed (.zip) file (about 643MB) to a Windows server or workstation. The zipped file contains the OVF file, three VMDK files, a Read Me file, the end user license agreement, and the user documentation.

After installing the OVF, you must power on, and initialize the virtual machine. Open vCenter, select the Foglight™ for Virtualization, Free Edition virtual machine you just installed, and click Power on the virtual machine. Once the appliance is started, it initializes the operating system, and starts Foglight™ for Virtualization, Free Edition. The DHCP server automatically obtains the IP address. By default, Pool.ntp.org is used as the Network Time Protocol (NTP) server. These options can be changed after Foglight™ for Virtualization, Free Edition has started successfully.

When opening the Snapshot Explorer tab you will see 3 rows. A summary of the snapshots in your environment appears at the top of the page. Click any of the links to display further details in the Snapshot List table.

If you want to remove snapshots or set up other types of waste detection, activate the Foglight™ for Virtualization, Standard Edition trial through the button on the top right.

Happy Hunting those Orphaned snapshots!