Xangati has released a new free tool to the public. If you're familiar with my Top 10 Free Tools list, then you know I'm a sucker for free stuff, who isn't? I've had a chance to play around with Xangati's new free tool and it really caught my attention. Xangati Free is a great free tool because it's essentially the core of the whole Xangati management platform. I'll explain the differences below.

If you remember the grading scale I had for the Top 10 Free Tools list, here is how Xangati Free stands:

19 points puts it right there on the cusp of a Top 10 Free Tool. Seeing as how Embotics V-Scout has hit an EOL, we can put Xangati in the Top 10. Let's dive a bit deeper.

Xangati Free is the core of Xangati but still has limits. Xangati Free packages all the features, management, and troubleshooting capabilities of the complete Xangati platform except that you are limited to 10 "identities". I had to ask the same question, so what's an "identity"? Xangati defines an identity as a Virtual Machine (VM) or a specific IP interface.

Xangati is installed as a VM on your host. After the initial setup, the Xangati VM starts collecting data from the vSwitch/vDS/1000v and pulls in ESX API statistics. At this point, you can either specify which 10 identities you want to monitor or let the auto-discovery option take care of this task. Choose particular VMs or even setup monitoring for an IP interface such as iSCSI traffic on the host. The Xangati Web UI presents a generic look that can be customized with over 30 different views. The dashboard presents the top talkers of network traffic, CPU and RAM users, Disk Latency, etc. Each one of these views can be edited or drilled down further. If we take a VM for example, we can drill down and see how much CPU and RAM it is consuming, view the particular applications running on the VM, or see if there is any latency going on with disks or network. We can drill down another step further into the network statistics and see what type of traffic the VM is sending and receiving. As well as see all the other VMs this VM is talking to with an optional drill down to see the type and how much traffic. The one part where the free version isn't limited is that we can see up to 100 talkers for a specific VMs traffic.

To go along with the troubleshooting aspect, this free tool packages 2 of the 4 recording features available as part of the Xangati suite. The two recording features are:

1. Administrator Level: Once logged in to the UI, hit the play/stop/record button
2. ESX Alerts: If the ESX server pops up an alert about the CPU, RAM, or Disk. It will prompt a recording to take place without the Administrator being in the UI and email a reminder to take a look at the alert within the UI. This way troubleshooting becomes easier because we can see what was going on with the host when the alert took place.

There is also a "favorite" if you would like to keep the recordings for an extended period of time. When a recording takes place, it captures everything. If we replay a specific recording, the dashboard UI can be changed to see any metric during that time.

Xangati also touts a robust search option to easily find anything that has been automatically indexed. Once information has been gathered, the search option in the upper right hand corner has a google-like feel that will auto-populate with whatever you are searching for once you start typing. You can do searches for a particular VM or a single TCP port number.

We can't forget about Reporting. Bundled with this free tool is the ability to not only create your own customized reports of Bandwidth, Types of Traffic, CPU, RAM, VMs, etc, but all the reports can be scheduled! Once the schedule has been setup, a simple configuration can email the reports directly to any inbox.

Xangati is very network focused. This appliance not only allows you to monitor your vSwitch, Virtual Distributed Switch, and Nexus 1000v Virtual switches, but you can also monitor any physical switch in your environment. A true one stop shop for end-to-end monitoring.

What don't you get in the free version? Xangati wants you to have a taste of the pie, not the whole thing. So here are some other things you achieve by buying the full blown suite:

• A single UI for your whole VI. Be able to monitor your whole VI by installing a Xangati VM on every host and view everything under a single pane of glass
• The 2 other Recording Features: Auto thresh holding and profiling for different kinds of metrics such as storage or network latency allows pro-active setup of alerts for recordings down to the VM level. End-User recording allows a user to start a recording without being in the UI, continue with their work, stop the recording, and allow you to watch playback to help troubleshoot their problem. This is a step up from Windows 7 recording feature because this really dives deep into the vSwitch itself. Prime use for VDI environments.
• Auto-discover ESX pairs. Xangati will gather the response time between ESX servers, datastores, or any subnet which can help troubleshoot host level performance or problems.
• Customized Xangati UI for multiple users. If there is a particular team, such as a Microsoft Exchange Team, a customized UI with only their servers and applications can be created.
• More the 10 identities of course....

Give Xangati Free a try.

Need help installing. Check out this video: