Self-Led Project Plan for Virtualization Manager

This article provides a step-by-step guide for self-led onboarding of SolarWinds Virtualization Manager (VMAN). It includes installation, integration with the SolarWinds Platform, configuration of monitoring settings, optimization recommendations, virtual storage management, alerting, reporting, and best practices to help you optimize virtual infrastructure performance and capacity planning effectively.

First published date

8/15/2025 9:25 PM

Last published date

8/20/2025 4:58 PM

Overview

Installation & Setup

Confirm VMAN Installation

Ensure VMAN is installed and ready for configuration.
VMAN Installation Guide
System Requirements

Monitoring & Settings

Review ESX Host Hardware Health

Check and monitor ESX host hardware resources.
Hardware Monitoring & VMware

Configure VMAN Settings

Adjust VMAN-specific settings within the SolarWinds Platform.
Configure VMAN Recommendations

Nutanix Monitoring

Enable and configure monitoring for Nutanix virtual environments.
Monitor Nutanix Solutions

Hyper-V Monitoring

Enable and configure monitoring for Hyper-V virtual environments.
Monitor Hyper-V via SNMP/WMI

Recommendations & Optimization

Apply and Schedule Recommendations

Implement performance and resource optimization suggestions.
VMAN Recommendations Overview
Configure VMAN Recommendations

Cloud Monitoring

Monitor AWS and Azure instances as SolarWinds Platform nodes.
Manage Cloud Instances as Nodes

Virtual Storage Management

Identify and Remove Zombie VMs

Detect and remove unused VMs to free resources.

Manage VM Snapshots

Monitor and remove unneeded VM snapshots.
Delete Snapshot of Virtual Machine

Remove Orphaned VMDKs

Identify and clean up unused VMDK files.
Identify Orphaned VMDKs

Plan Future VM Rollouts

Use historical data to guide new VM deployments.
VMAN Capacity Planning

Use PerfStack for Troubleshooting

Correlate VMAN data with PerfStack dashboards.
PerfStack Investigation

Alerts & Actions

Configure VMAN-Specific Alert Actions

Set up alerts with VMAN-specific variables and actions.
Available Alert Actions
VMAN Alerts

Reporting

Review Out-of-the-Box Reports

Access and review prebuilt VMAN reports.
VMAN Reporting Example

Create Custom Reports

Build new reports with VMAN-specific variables.
Create a Report for Specific VMs

Best Practices & Enhancements

  • Backup Configuration
  • Backup VMAN settings before major changes.
  • Use Custom Properties
  • Tag and organize VMs, hosts, and storage entities with custom properties.
  • Validate Environment Compatibility
  • Ensure VMAN is compatible with hypervisor versions, APIs, and platform integrations.

Notes