4.2 Health Service
vSAN 6.2 also features an improved health service. The health service actively tests and monitors a number of items such as:
• Hardware compatibility
• Network connectivity
• Cluster health
• Capacity consumption
• Limits health
• Physical disk health
The health service is enabled by default and configured to check the health of the vSAN environment every 60 minutes. The plug-in provides details on:
• Whether the vSAN deployment is fully supported, functional, and operational
• Immediate indications to a root cause in the event of a failure, leading to a speedier resolution time
• The ability to test different aspects of the configuration
The health service is quite thorough in the number of tests it performs. As an example, proper network configuration is key to a healthy vSAN cluster and there are 11 tests in the Network section of the vSAN Health user interface.
If an issue is detected in the environment, a warning is visible in the vSAN user interface. Clicking on the warning provides more details about the issue. For example, a controller driver that is not on the hardware compatibility list for vSAN will trigger a warning. In addition to providing details about the warning, the vSAN Health Service user interface also has an Ask VMware button, which brings up the relevant VMware Knowledge Base article.
vSphere and vSAN support a wide variety of hardware configurations. The list of hardware components and corresponding drivers that are supported with vSAN can be found in the VMware Compatibility Guide. It is very important to use only hardware, firmware, and drivers found in this guide to help maintain stability and performance of a vSAN environment. The list of certified hardware, firmware, and drivers is contained in a hardware compatibility list (HCL) database. The vSAN user interface makes it very easy to update this information, for use by the Health Service tests. If the environment has internet connectivity, updates can be obtained directly from VMware. Otherwise, HCL updates can be downloaded as a file to enable offline updates.
Figure 20. Health Service – Physical Server Specifications Support
Finally, if an issue does arise that requires the assistance of VMware Support, it is very easy to upload support bundles to help expedite the troubleshooting process. Clicking the Upload Support Bundles to Service Request button enables an administrator to enter an existing support request (SR) number and upload the necessary logs with just a few mouse clicks.
