Introducing Hyper9

Posted by: Eric Siebert
VMware ESX, VI3, VMworld 2008, Eric Siebert

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the folks from Hyper9 and check out their upcoming Virtual Infrastructure Search and Analytics product. Hyper9 is a new company that recently emerged from stealth mode and is currently in development of a new VI3 reporting and analytics product. The Hyper9 team consists of some well known names in the industry including David Marshall, Wade Reynolds, Dave McCrory and Chris Ostertag. Hyper9’s product is currently in a private beta and is due to be released for a public beta later this year. Their product promises to be a unique approach to monitoring and reporting and is based on using a Google style search engine to build queries to report on many different metrics that are available on the ESX hosts, VirtualCenter server and the virtual machines. It collects data from the virtual layer to the operating system all the way down to the physical hardware. Their product is agentless and works by utilizing the VMware Infrastructure SDK and also other methods like Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to gather information on the virtual machines.

The product utilizes its own database to collect and store data and utilizes indexing technology to ensure that query results are quickly returned. It has a very attractive and easy to use interface that offers many powerful features and functionality. One great feature is the ability to view the state of a host or VM over a period of time to identify things that have changed between time periods and look for trends. It also has a powerful alerting mechanism that greatly improves on the very limited alerting that VirtualCenter provides.

The product is still evolving and Hyper9 plans to show it off at VMworld before the public beta begins. Their website currently does not have a great deal of information on the product but hopefully that will change the closer they get to releasing it. When I inquired into how much they planned on charging for the product to my surprise they said it would be free with optional add-on modules that can be purchased. From what I saw this product has the potential to be a great business intelligence tool and will be an invaluable part of any VMware environment. I encourage you to check out the public beta once it is released and if you are at VMworld this year stop by their booth and check them out.