During VMworld 2021 we announced vRealize Operations 8.6 which provides a lot of new features and capabilities. You can see an Whats New overview here as well as a feature walk through here.

With the new UI release some of the content might not be where were used to find it in the previous versions. In this post we will navigate through some of the changes and point to “Where is it now”. I also covered the UI overview on my blog here

Lets jump in to it. As shown in the screenshot below in the old UI we used to have navigation items up top as well as on the side. Many of the menu options across the top were duplicated in the left-hand navigation menu and were consolidated in this release.

The screenshot shows a vRealize Operations Manager UI with consolidated navigation options on the left and top.

As we can see in the new UI we still have the 4 pillars that were used too however the top menu bar was removed in order to be more consistent with the rest of the products in our SaaS platform. The sidebar is also collapsible allowing us to use the space for other purposes.

The image shows a vROPS 8.6 UI with a sidebar menu for navigation, including options like Data Sources, Environment, and Troubleshoot.

The Home button can be easily be found as the first item in the menu

Home button is first in menu, showing navigation options.

The Dashboards are now conveniently located under the Visualize menu. This allows us now to go directly to dashboards, views as well as reports.

The Dashboards are now under the Visualize menu, allowing direct access to dashboards, views, and reports.

The Alerts tab has been relocated under Troubleshooting. We can now easily navigate between different troubleshooting options like Alerts, the troubleshooting Workbench and log analysis all under the same menu.

The Alerts tab is now under Troubleshoot in the navigation menu.

The environment tab can be easily be spotted on the side menu. Once we click on it we will notice a number of additional items like the new Object Browser which allows us to navigate through the environment more easily as well as the older Inventory browser. Some of the other options that are included are the new Business Applications, the previously Applications, Custom Groups, Custom Datacenters as well as Cloud Zones

The image shows the vRealize Operations Manager UI with the Environment tab open, revealing options like Object Browser, Inventory, Business Applications, and others.

Lastly the Administration menu. The administration menu has been broken into 2 different menus. The first one is under Configure where we can make configuration changes for our monitoring options things like defining Policies, Alerts configuration, Super Metrics, Application Discovery, Application Monitoring, Cost Settings, Custom VM Profiles, Configuration Files as well as Maintenance Schedules

The image shows a menu under Configure in vROPS 8.6, listing options like Policies, Alerts, and Application Discovery.

The second administration menu goes specifically in to overall product administration like Access Control, Certificates, Licensing, Collector Groups, Content Management, Orphaned Content, Global Settings, Icons, Audit, Recent Tasks, Dynamic Thresholds and Cost Calculation

The image shows the Administration menu in vROPS 8.6, listing options like Access Control, Certificates, Licensing, Collector Groups, and more.

Now that we have the top menu out of the way lets take a look at where the side Menu items are in the new UI.

The image shows the side menu in vROPS 8.6, highlighting the “Troubleshoot” section with a red dot.

The quick Start menu item is now our default Home page

The Quick Start menu leads to the Home page with options like Optimize Performance, Data Sources, and Environment.

The operations overview is now conveniently placed as another tab on the home screen

The operations overview tab is now available on the home screen in vROPS 8.6.

Workload optimization is now conveniently placed with other optimization items under the optimize menu and it has been renamed to Workload Placement

UI shows “Workload Placement” under “Optimize” menu, with options to optimize now, schedule, or automate.

From a rightsizing perspective we can see that rightsizing is right under Workload Placement in the Optimize sub menu and it has been renamed to Rightsize

The image shows the vROPS 8.6 UI with the “Rightsize” option under the “Optimize” menu, replacing the old “Workload Placement” label.

The Recommended Actions menu item has been deprecated however i did create the menu item as a dashboard and it can be downloaded from the Sample Exchange on code.vmware.com or by clicking here

The Optimize Capacity Overview page can be found under Capacity in the Optimize Menu

The image shows the Optimize Capacity Overview page under the Optimize menu in vROPS 8.6.

The Reclaim menu can be found under the Optimize Menu

Reclaim menu under Optimize shows savings potential and reclaimable resources.

What-If Analysis has been renamed as Capacity and it can be found under the Plan Menu

What-If Analysis renamed to Capacity under Plan Menu in vROPS 8.6.

We can find the Troubleshooting Workbench under the Troubleshoot menu

Troubleshooting Workbench under Troubleshoot menu in vROPS 8.6 UI.

The Virtual Machine menu was pointing to the VM Contention Dashboard which can now be found under Visualize -> All -> Performance -> Consumer -> VM Contention. The Dashboard can also be found by performing a search in the dashboard menu

The image shows the vROPS 8.6 UI navigation highlighting the VM Contention Dashboard under Visualize -> All -> Performance -> Consumer -> VM Contention.

The vSAN menu was pointing to the vSAN Contention Dashboard which can now be found under Visualize -> All -> Performance -> Provider -> vSAN Contention. The Dashboard can also be found by performing a search in the dashboard menu

The vSAN Contention Dashboard is under Visualize -> All -> Performance -> Provider -> vSAN Contention.

Using Logs can now be found under Troubleshoot -> Log Analysis

The image shows vROPS 8.6 UI navigation, highlighting “Using Logs” under Troubleshoot -> Log Analysis.

The compliance menu has been moved under Optimize -> Compliance

The compliance menu is now under Optimize -> Compliance in vROPS 8.6.

Discover Services has been renamed to Application Discovery and it can be found under Configure -> Application Discovery

UI shows “Application Discovery” under Configure, listing services like Active Directory and Apache HTTP.

Monitor Applications was renamed to Application Monitoring and it can be found under the Configure menu

Application Monitoring under Configure menu shows Linux OS and Windows Host.

Automation Central can still be found as a separate item on the side menu

Automation Central visible under Manage Applications in vROPS 8.6 UI.

For more information visit us at https://www.vmware.com/products/vrealize-operations.html