This section discusses the layout of the user interface.

Navigation pane

The left navigation bar is designed to provide clear visibility into Infrastructure Observability functionality to streamline access to information. The top-level menu selections are task-oriented, directing the user to the appropriate section of the user interface to access the necessary information.

The navigation bar consists of the following selections:

Home – Access the home page that provides high-level summary information and some detailed information about various key aspects of the environment, allowing users to quickly identify potential risks. This information includes the Proactive Health Score, predictions on when pools and clusters will reach full capacity and system performance impacts.

Monitor - View the multisystem pages for Storage, Networking, Converged, Hyperconverged, Server, and Data Protection. A drop-down menu allows the user to switch between Health, Inventory, Capacity, and Performance.

• Health – Shows the proactive health scores across the environment.
• Inventory – Shows the system code version, location, site, and contract status. This category is where VxBlock converged system information is displayed.
• Capacity – Includes the usable, used, and free capacity metrics. For switches, capacity is displayed in terms of ports.
• Performance – Shows system level performance KPIs for all systems and switches.

Note: Items in gray indicate that the selected product type or category is not applicable.

The Virtualization View provides users a more traditional VMware tree-style navigation similar to what administrators are familiar with in vCenter. The Virtualization view supports VxRail, storage, and PowerEdge based virtual machines.

The Carbon Footprint page provides insights on energy and carbon emissions at the system and workload level. This includes reporting on both year to date and forecast metrics.

The Service Requests page provides a status of open service requests applicable to the systems monitored by Observability.

There are also views to see aggregated lists of all pools, health issues, and alerts.

Manage – View available system updates for storage, networking HCI, and data protection. Perform VxRail update pre-checks, software downloads, cluster updates, and PowerEdge firmware updates.

Optimize – Access the Reclaimable Storage listing and relevant knowledge base articles for systems.

Reports – Create and view custom reports. Reports can consist of both tables and line charts. They can be exported on demand or scheduled and emailed to a specified list of recipients.

Cybersecurity – View security risk levels, active and resolved security issues, and configure security evaluation policies for cybersecurity-enabled systems. View applicable security advisories. Configure and view cybersecurity ransomware incidents for supported platforms.

Lifecycle – View service contracts and life-cycle milestones for the components in VxBlock Converged Systems. This view includes timelines that display the following milestone dates: General Availability, End of Life, End of Support, End of Renewal, End of Service Life. Perform CI code comparisons to identify gaps between running software and firmware versions and target code levels.

Admin – Includes links to various administrative tasks.

The Identity Management section allows Observability administrators to set access controls for standard Observability users and initiate the single sign-on process federating Observability with the customer’s Identity Provider.

The Settings menu is used to configure access for User Community and Customer Support and email notification settings. The Settings section also allows users to set filters on which systems they want to see in both the Observability user interface and the mobile app.

The Customization section allows users to temporarily pause connectivity health checks for hosts connected to Unity XT family and SC Series systems and capacity health checks for Unity XT file systems. The Integrations section provides access to Webhooks and REST API settings.

The Integrations page allows users with the DevOps role to configure Webhooks and obtain an authorization key to access the Observability REST API.

The Licenses page shows system license and entitlement details including entitlement type and expiration date for PowerFlex systems, PowerScale virtual edition, and APEX Navigator.

The Connectivity page shows the connectivity status of all Observability capable systems and allows users to onboard SC Series, PowerVault, and VxBlock Converged systems.

The Collectors section is where users can download the Observability Collector for VMware, Connectrix, and PowerSwitch and see the status of all installed Collectors.

The Jobs page shows the status of VxRail and PowerEdge tasks initiated from Observability.

The HCI Settings page allows users to enable access controls and enter credentials to vCenter for system updates.

The Tags page allows users to manage tags to assign custom meta data to systems and components.

Global Search

The Global Search feature helps users quickly find Systems, Hosts, Pools, Storage Resource Pools, Storage Groups, LUNs/Volumes, File Systems, Virtual Machines, and MTrees/Storage Units. Users can specify a few keywords and get a summarized list of top matches. From there, users can click an item to access its details or go to an expanded view with all matches.

AIOps Assistant

Access and chat with the GenAI-powered virtual assistant to answer questions about product support. At the time of this publication, the AIOps assistant is in tech preview and available through entitlement.

Feedback and Dell Support

Selecting the comment icon allows the user to submit feedback to the Infrastructure Observability product team or open the Dell Support website.

Jobs

The Jobs icon opens a window showing recent jobs and status and a link to the Jobs page.

Help and What’s New in APEX AIOps Observability

Infrastructure Observability is updated frequently to deliver helpful new content to users. Use the Observability Simulator (https://cloudiq.dell.com/simulator) to view the latest features which may not be documented in this paper.

New features can be seen by clicking the icon on the top menu bar.

The “What’s New in APEX AIOps Observability” window will appear showing recent changes and enhancements. Clicking View All Enhancements displays a historical list of all the updates. The most recent information is presented first, and users can scroll down the list to see the monthly evolution of Observability since its introduction. This display can be turned off by sliding the Don’t show again until the next update button.

Selecting the user icon allows the user to switch companies if they have access to multiple sites and sign out of the UI.