Since July 2017 we released 31 ZenPack updates with over 120 new features, fixes, and enhancements. Here are some highlights:
AWS 4.0:
With over 30% of our customer base utilizing our AWS ZenPack we’ve done several major releases in the past 12 months to ensure the ZenPack keeps pace with our customers needs as they continue to embrace AWS services as critical pillars of their service delivery.
ZenPack History:
- AWS 1.0: Gave us the basics with coverage of EC2, S3, and VPC services
- AWS 2.0: Provided auto-discovery and monitoring of instance guest OSs
- AWS 3.0: Moved to a Commercial ZP with the addition of CloudFormation Template models, coverage of Relational Database Services, as well as cost/spend utilization tracking and forecasting
The AWS 4.0 ZenPack brings additional capabilities into the fold with the following features:
AWS Tag Support:
AWS allows users to assign metadata to their AWS resources in the form of tags. As customers deploy AWS resources, tags are utilized as a feature to help manage resource access control, cost tracking, automation, and organization. By implementing the use of these tags in the AWS ZenPack, we allow customers to organize and group AWS devices, components, and billing/spend via our their already established AWS tags, providing the ability to automatically organize and monitor AWS assets in a clear and concise manner aligned with their defined business processes.
BotoV3/botocore conversion:
Though not a customer-facing feature, the conversion to the latest version of the python based AWS API provides our development team a more robust foundation than prior versions, allows the flexibility for AWS driven service and region updates to be implemented without breaking ZP functionality, and provides the foundation for the addition of ad-hoc AWS services and CloudWatch metrics. Overall, this library shift allows us to keep moving quickly and stay agile for future AWS ZenPack development.
Ad-hoc Services:
On nearly weekly basis AWS releases a new service. Over-time their product catalog has grown to a deluge of over 100+ service offerings. The AWS ZenPack already provides coverage for the primary services used by the bulk of our customers and the broader market (List of most used AWS services for 2016).
However, outside of the AWS mainstays (EC2, S3, RDS, VPC, etc...) developing features and coverage for sparsely used AWS services can quickly becomes an exercise in “chasing the long tail”. Which is why have enabled the ability to generically model and monitor AWS services in an ad-hoc manner with the help of Professional Services.
Utilizing YAML, we now have the ability add modeling & monitoring for the remainder of the AWS product catalog. If a specific customer requires monitoring for Athena Analytics services (or any other AWS service out there), the 4.0 ZenPack has your back.
The first iteration of this feature is not point and click and requires Professional Services assistance. Future releases will incorporate enhancements to simplify the implementation process. Secondarily, as we will now have visibility into what additional services our customers are demanding, we’ll have the insight into which ad-hoc AWS services are growing in popularity among our customer base and we can move to implement those services as a standard component of future AWS ZenPack releases.
Ad-hoc Metrics:
On top of ad-hoc AWS services, we have also implemented the capability for customers to add and monitor any available Cloudwatch metrics (documented here in the AWS ZenPack Catalog Entry). If a customer needs to track the GetRecords.Latency of an AWS Kinesis service, no problem, any CloudWatch metric is simply a few clicks away.
Additional info & documentation for this ZenPack can be found in our ZenPack catalog: https://www.zenoss.com/product/zenpacks/amazon-web-services-commercial
Nutanix (New ZP):
With the release of our Nutanix 1.0 ZenPack we have our first entry into HCI coverage.
Nutanix has emerged as a front-runner in the integrated systems space and in 2016 was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems for the second year in a row. Part of the appeal of the Nutanix AOS 5.0 platform is hypervisor agnostic nature, supporting ESX, Hyper-V and XenServer natively. This allows companies to deploy new HCI resources into existing environments without disruption to existing virtualization platforms that are in place.
The 1.0 release of the Nutanix ZP is compatible with the Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV), with future planned releases of the ZenPack to add coverage for both ESX and Hyper-V (in that order) to provide comprehensive coverage for heterogeneous Nutanix deployments with deep integrations into ESX and Hyper-V solutions that Zenoss already provides.
Additional info & documentation for this ZenPack can be found in our ZenPack catalog: https://www.zenoss.com/product/zenpacks/Nutanix
Isilon (New ZP):
On the storage front, the release of the Dell EMC Isilon ZenPack expands our coverage in the growing storage market. Presently, the bulk of data in the worldwide datasphere is stored on-premises. On-prem looks to remain the preferred method of storage for the near future with IDC estimating the percentage of data processed, stored, or delivered by public cloud datacenters will double to 26% from 2016 to 2025, with the bulk still remaining on-prem.
We have strong coverage for EMC VMAX, VNX and NetApp OnTAP based storage devices, but as the storage market continues to sprawl, our coverage will expand as well.
The Isilon ZenPack is the continuation of that journey and supports Isilon hardware utilizing the OneFS 8.x releases and provides in-depth monitoring of the NAS performance, utilization, status, metrics and events for array components including:
- Clusters
- IFS file systems
- Snapshots
- Nodes
- Chassis
- Disks
- Sensors (Fans, temperature sensors, power sensors)
Additional info & documentation for this ZenPack can be found in our ZenPack catalog: https://www.zenoss.com/product/zenpacks/dellemc-isilon-commercial
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