Blog from March, 2018
After 2 family & friends version (5.4 & 5.4.1), we have released BVQ version 5.4.2 today.
This is a major release with new features:
- Capacity charting - You can now visualize capacity graphs in the BVQ GUI. This allows you for example to monitor your capacity growth over time or the compression savings.
- Design IO density - This feature allows you to simulate different backend performance characteristics for your workload. For example: How would this MDisk group perform with only NL-SAS drives instead of SAS drives.
- Report scheduling - Now you are able to schedule your reports for automatic creation. The times of repeating manual creations are over (but still available)
VDisk copy capacity difference - This allows you to visualize differences in capacity for VDisk copies (e.g. primary copy = fully allocated & secondary copy = thin provisioned) very easily
- Enhanced path based charting (PBC) - Now there are more object types available to use PBC for all available metrics
PBC chart report snippets - With this you can use performance graphs in reports very easily by just creating a PBC favorite in the GUI
Enhanced BVQ Server user roles - You can now create users with different roles (e.g. report designer, report creator, report viewer, ...)
- BVQ server maintenance mode - DB schema manager & scheduler are now moved to the BVQ server
For a more detailed description of the new features available, see BVQ 5.4
Because the installation method is a bit different to former updates, we have a short update guide available, see BVQ Update guide 5.3.x to 5.4.x
Enjoy the new features!
In this Blog post I will give you an overview of how to update from BVQ version 5.3.x (or 5.2.x) to 5.4.x.
With BVQ version 5.4.x we are introducing the following new features:
- BVQ local scanner replacing the old scanner infrastructure (already introduced in BVQ version 5.3.x but not mandatory yet)
- BVQ scheduler is moved to the BVQ server
- BVQ server maintenance mode replacing the old db-schema-migration
Because of this, the typical update path is a bit different to former updates.
5.3.x & 5.4.x comparison
BVQ modules comparison
| up to BVQ 5.3.7 | since BVQ 5.4.1 |
|---|---|
|
|
As you can see: BVQ DB schema, SVC scanner, VMware scanner & Scheduler are no longer available
Windows services comparison
| BVQ 5.3.7 | BVQ 5.4.x |
|---|---|
|
|
Usage of multiple scanner instances led to a more inefficient usage of HW resources before BVQ version 5.4.x (in this example only 1 svc/vmware scanners are used).
How to update to BVQ version 5.4.x
Recommendation: Always use the same Windows user to perform the BVQ update!
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Download the 5.4.x Download package from the BVQ wiki - click BVQ 5.4 (5.4 & 5.4.1 are only available as family & friends release) |
| 2 | Perform the update as usual, except for the following steps:
|
| 3 | After the package repository is finished you will be forwarded to the BVQ sever web UI.
|
| 4 |
Now BVQ schema migration needs to be started
Click Start Migration
DB migration starts, depending on the BVQ version level and the size of your environment, this schema migration will take some time (up to several hours) When the DB schema migration has finished, click Next |
| 5 | As we no longer support the old scheduler in BVQ version 5.4.x, you need to set up the performance expiry again. In version 5.4.x this can be done in a more granular way.
Enter the required value (you can use the recommendations, values can be changed online afterwards) First click Save to apply settings. Click Next afterwards to proceed. |
| 6 |
|
Setting up new scanner configurations
With version 5.4.x the old scanner infrastructure is no longer supported. You need to create new configurations within the BVQ server web UI.
You can find a detailed scanner migration guide here: BVQ - Scanner Migration guide
The new scanner no longer supports SSH keys for authenticating SSH users to SVC/Storwize/FlashSystem clusters for security reasons.
In case you are using SSH keys you have to change the authentication method to username + password prior the setup of new scanners
By default the scanner services & scheduler should be stopped during the update to version 5.4.x. Please check if the Windows services are stopped:
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | After logging into the web UI, navigate to the scanner section:
|
| 2 | Within the scanner section setup the new scanners
Click + SVC or + VMWARE to set up a new scanner |
| 3 | Enter the needed information for the scanner Example SVC:
Example VMware:
Click Save to apply scanner settings. Repeat for each SVC/Storwize/FlashSystem/VMware system in your environment.
|
| 4 | The scanner will start after the configuration is saved. Please check scanner overview for scan results
|
Clean up old BVQ modules
The following BVQ modules are no longer needed after the update:
- bvq-db-schema-manager
- bvq-scheduler
- bvq-svc-scanner
- bvq-vmware-scanner
Use the uninstaller files or Windows Programs and Features to uninstall the old BVQ modules.
The uninstaller files can be found in each module directory:
- C:\Program Files\SVA\BVQ\bvq-db-schema-manager\uninstall.exe
- C:\Program Files\SVA\BVQ\bvq-scheduler\uninstall.exe
- C:\Program Files\SVA\BVQ\bvq-svc-scanner\uninstall.exe
- C:\Program Files\SVA\BVQ\bvq-vmware-scanner\uninstall.exe
(Depending on your installation, the partition path may vary)
Select all check boxes within the uninstaller to remove the old BVQ modules completely.
Afterwards your BVQ directory within the file explorer should look like this:
Further information
- For future updates the scanner configurations will remain. Please check the scanner status after a successful update.
- In BVQ version 5.5.x we will introduce a new alerting, therefor the old alerting will be moved to the BVQ server, too. So you will only have 3 different BVQ modules with version 5.5.x (MongoDB, GUI & Server)
- Using HTTPS for the BVQ server: The operation of a reverse proxy providing certificate and HTTPS connection to the user is possible. (Connection between BVQ Server - Reverse proxy still HTTP)
If you have questions regarding the update or need further support, please contact the BVQ Team (bvq@sva.de).