Editor’s note: this review is from Bilal Hashmi, an accomplished and respected VMware vExpert. Bilal also holds specialized certifications like ISA, MSCITP-SA and VCP-3/4/5. You can connect with Bilal on Twitter.

This unique monitoring solution allows you to be proactive in the management of VMware vSphere infrastructure while at the same time simplifying operations. In this review I will talk about how you can leverage the functionality and unique architecture to accomplish this dual purpose.

Just recently, I had the pleasure to work with the good folks at Goliath Technologies and review their solution, Goliath Performance Monitor (GPM).

My first impressions of GPM were pretty positive. If you’re unfamiliar with GPM, for VMware vSphere it’s a single solution for providing monitoring across the 5 layers of the virtual stack including ApplicationOSVM,Hypervisor and Hardware. So it’s a single pane of glass to monitor your entire stack. The version of GPM I am reviewing is 11.6.0.6.

The GPM Installation Process – Up & Running within Minutes

Goliath does an excellent job in creating an installation guide for the tool so I won’t go into detail about that. I just glanced over it and my deployment may have taken about 30 minutes or so.

Within minutes, I was playing with the monitoring tool’s consoles. One thing I would like to point out from the installation guide is the pre-requisites. You will need a VM or Physical Machine with the following settings:

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 – 2012 R2
  • At least 8 vCPUs and 12GB RAM (these are soft limits but probably a good idea to follow these when deploying in production)
  • .NET 3.5 SP1 installed on the Virtual Server or Physical Machine
  • Internet Explorer Enhanced Security disabled
  • TCP ports 80 & 82 opened inbound
  • Download the Goliath Performance Monitor software
  • Proper credentials for the environments you would like to add to inventory (vCenter, XenServer, ZDC, DDC, etc.)

Goliath Performance Monitor vs vCOPs/vRealize Operations

Why XenServer credentials? Unlike some other popular tools in the space like vCOPs/vRealize Operations, GPM supports VMware vSphere and also XenServer, Hyper-V along with XenDesktop, XenApp and Horizon View.

So remember what I said about simplifying IT operations? You can use Goliath’s product to monitor VMware vSphere and everything else too. Not to mention you don’t have to fall prey to licensing that limits your functionality. Basically, you get full functionality with Performance Monitor on the base product, unlike some of its direct and indirect competitors.

As soon as the installation was complete, I pointed my browser to the IP address of the server the tool was installed on and this is where I landed.