VMware has released two new Flings.

vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance

The vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance allows administrators to model the network impact of a virtual machine replication without producing actual replication traffic. The appliance provides command-line tools to configure replication for any VM in a vSphere Virtual Center. The replication is established in preview mode and thus requires no storage space. Networking traffic, required for the replication, is measured and displayed in an easy-to-understand graphical format that allows you to estimate the network bandwidth required.

• A command-line interface for configuring replication within the same or a remote Virtual Center or ESX host
• A web page presenting traffic graphics for each replication
• Does not write the actual replicated data and thus does not require any storage

This is a separate virtual appliance that you will need to deploy

The second Fling is related to Cluster performance

vCenter Cluster Performance Tool

vCenter Cluster Performance Tool is a Powershell script that uses vSphere PowerCLI to obtain performance data for a cluster by aggregating information from individual hosts.

You have the following options to specify in the script.

• An “interval” of 20s or 300s. The default is 20s, and corresponds to real time statistics. 300s corresponds to the 5 min interval statistics.
• A stats query flag to obtain the list of counter IDs available on the vCenter Server. You can then pass the desired counter ID from that list to obtain Performance metrics for the cluster.
  
• Gathers all data of the specified interval type that is available on each host in the specified cluster
• Easy and a quick way of obtaining performance data for a vCenter cluster
• Data is saved in a CSV file, which can then easily be fed into any charting software
• A chart, in PNG format, is also generated for visualization

vCenter 5.0 and above is needed for both.

Flings

Our engineers work on tons of pet projects in their spare time, and are always looking to get feedback on their projects (or “flings”). Why flings? A fling is a short-term thing, not a serious relationship but a fun one. Likewise, the tools that are offered here are intended to be played with and explored. None of them are guaranteed to become part of any future product offering and there is no support for them. They are, however, totally free for you to download and play around with them!