Recently I was having a discussion with one of my friend on NSX related topic and then I came to know about a new must have tool for your NSX based lab. Title of this post itself explains which tool I am talking about here.

What is vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) and where it came from?

vRealize Network Insight is a product for delivering intelligent operations for your SDN environment (specially based on NSX). vRealize Network Insight, allows a single pane of glass view of the VMware NSX environment. vRNI integrates with NSX to deliver intelligent operations for software defined networking.

In June,2016 VMware acquired a company called Arkin Net and named the product vRealize Network Insight. I read few blog where people used to refer this tool by nickname “vernie” and it sounds just exactly right. Cool name isn’t it?

What advantage vRNI offers?

With the help of vRNI you can optimize network performance and availability with visibility and analytics across virtual and physical networks.

It includes (but is not limited to) the following features.

1: 360 degree visibility and end-to-end troubleshooting across converged infrastructure and physical and virtual networks,

2: Performance optimization and topology mapping.

3: Advanced monitoring to ensure health and availability of NSX.

4: Pre-deployment planning that includes tools to deploy VMware NSX more efficiently including microsegmentation planning as well.

5: Physical switch vendor integration, traffic analytics, change tracking etc.

Where does vRNI fits in a SDDC environment?

The below graphic from VMware rightly explains where vRNI sits in a Software Defined Data Center

vRNI versions:

There are 2 versions of vRNI: Assessment version and a full version which is an add on to NSX licensing. 

The assessment version will give you micro-segmentation planning and will help you in diagnosing what percentage of traffic in your environment is East-West versus North-South.

Installation Requirements

Before proceeding with deployment of vRNI please check the compatibility matrix and ensure below criteria is met

• vCenter Server 5.5 or above.
• ESXi 5.5 U2 and above, or ESXi 6.0 Update 1b and above.
• vRNI v3.4 supports vCenter Server 6.5 and ESXi 6.5 as well.
• HTTPS connectivity to vCenter (to fetch environment info).
• Distributed switches must be vDS v5.5 or above.

Resources

vRealize Network Insight v3.4.0 Download 

vRealize Network Insight v3.4.0 Release Notes

vRealize Network Insight v3.2.0 Install Guide | User Guide

vRealize Network Insight Command Line Interface Reference Guide pdf 

vRealize Network Insight Hands-on Lab 

vRealize Network Insight FAQ