• Before an upgrade of vrni ensure you have an offline snapshot of platform(s) and collector (s) nodes.
  • Post upgrade delete snapshots, VMware doesn’t recommend to run VMs with snapshots for more than 3 days
  • For normal backups it is recommended to shutdown the platform nodes. Collectors can be left on. Then take the backup of the platform nodes. Shutdown them in reverse order platform 5, then 4 etc.., take the backup, then power them on in normal order platform 1,2 etc..

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/55829

  • The reservation for the CPU speed and RAM for each node must be 100% of the value specified above.
  • If the disk in any of the platform nodes exceeds 95% of the capacity, vrni UI will not be accessible.
  • Increase the Brick Size of Your Setup – cpu and memory

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Aria-Operations-for-Networks/6.11/Installing-Operations-for-Networks/GUID-E3D77266-E72E-49AF-B4A6-1810DD10C00F.html#GUID-E3D77266-E72E-49AF-B4A6-1810DD10C00F

  • Increase disk size of vrni – done on the fly.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Aria-Operations-for-Networks/6.11/Installing-Operations-for-Networks/GUID-459A2B99-5EC4-466E-947D-F7012338E76A.html

  • The Network Verification and Assurance (Network Map and Intents) and Flow Based Application Discovery (Flows) features are available only for Extra Large brick size only.

BRICK SIZING

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  • The query to determine the Total Flows is ‘count of flows in last 31 days, assuming the retention period as 31 days.

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  • The max time skew between the platform nodes must be less than 30 sec.
  • NTP service is critical. Don’t reboot the platform node or the collector node when the NTP service is not available.
  • When the existing compute resources are completely used by the other processes on the platform, vrni crashes and does not recover. If services fail, reboot the platform node.
  • The network latency between platform node and upgrade server is greater than 500ms, vrni might encounter an error. Network latency must be less than 500ms.
  • The recommended network latency between platform VMs for optimal performance is up to 3ms. Performance degrades beyond this.
  • Network latency between platform and collector VMs for optimal performance is up to 150ms. Performance degrades beyond this.
  • Disk latency for optimal performance is up to 5ms. Performance degrades beyond this.
  • The recommended disk IOPS is 7500.
  • Recommended bandwidth usage between the collector and the platform is 15 MBps or 120 Mbps.
  • Network Map the maximum supported firewall rules per VMware NSX-T Manager (including of DFW and edge rules) is 5000.
  • To use the Assurance and Verification feature in VMware Aria Operations for Networks, you must enable Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) and Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) (if supported) on the network devices.
  • As IPv6 addresses occupy more space in memory and disk, enabling IPv6 flow processing can reduce the platform and the collector capacity by up to 20%.

VRNI Network Diagrams architecture 1

By Kader