Introduction
StarWind Command Center is designed to deliver true single-pane-of-glass monitoring and management for StarWind HyperConverged Appliances on Hyper-V. It combines both monitoring and management functionality to not only check Hyper-V cluster and nodes’ health state as well as performance metrics from convenient dashboards but also administrate the entire StarWind HCA Hyper-V environment starting from nodes and networks and up to VM management.
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StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is a turnkey, entirely software-defined hyperconverged platform purpose-built for intensive virtualization workloads. Bringing the desired performance and reducing downtime, the solution can be deployed by organizations with limited budgets and IT team resources. Also, it requires only one onsite node to deliver HA for your applications that make the solution even more cost-efficient. |
Find out more about  StarWind HyperConverged Appliance |
Getting started with StarWind Command Center
Logging into the Command Center
1. To log into StarWind Command Center, enter https://*Command Center IP address*:8443 in a web browser. Please use credentials that were configured during the installation.
Main Menu Options
This part provides a detailed description of StarWind Command Center monitoring and management capabilities.
DASHBOARD
The DASHBOARD item provides a set of widgets that allow monitoring of virtualized infrastructure.
DASHBOARD consists of the following widgets:
1. Cluster Summary – delivers the general information about the cluster (including the cluster name and IP address), hypervisor, operating system, StarWind Stack version, SDS Stack version, and backup software.
2. Workload Summary – delivers the general cluster workload information, including the average queue depth, read/write ratio, IOPS (workload intensity measured in percentile), peak disk throughput, average IO size, and average IO latency.
3. VM(s) State – delivers the overall information on the state of the clustered VMs, including on, off, paused, and saved ones.
4. Node(s) State – delivers the overall information on the state of the clustered nodes, including up, down, and paused ones.
5. Virtual Volume(s) Availability – delivers the overall information on the state of virtual volumes, including those that are of high availability (StarWind HA volumes that are synchronized and available on both nodes), limited availability (StarWind HA volumes that are synchronized and available currently only from one node) and ones that are not available (offline StarWind volumes) and simple (StarWind volumes that are not replicated).
6. Resource usage – delivers information on usage of CPU, Memory, and Storage.
7. Performance – delivers the information in the form of graphs about IOPS, Disk Throughput, and Cluster-Wide Controller Latency. These metrics can be checked live, for last hour, last day, last week, last month, or last year.
8. Tasks and events – delivers the information on tasks and events in StarWind Command Center.
VIRTUAL MACHINES
The VIRTUAL MACHINES item consists of View and Manage tabs.
View
The View tab consists of the following widgets:
1. VM(s) Summary – provides information on a number of VMs, their state, and availability.
2. Resources Usage – provides information on CPU, memory, and storage utilization.
3. Performance – provides information on the CPU usage, memory usage, IOPS, and IO latency as per the selected VM in the form of graphs.
4. Tasks and Events (VMs) – provides information on the running and executed tasks and events related to VM operation.
Manage
This option delivers the ability to perform various operations with VMs such as creating new VMs, editing the settings of the existing VMs, removing VMs, cloning VMs, migrating VMs, opening VM console.
Creating a new VM
1. To create a new VM, click the Add icon
2. Specify the required name, number of vCPUs, amount of RAM, disk size, assign a network adapter, installation media, boot order, and VM files location.
3. To add a new or existing disk or a network adapter to a VM, click the Add device button and select the required option.
4. Click Create to create a new VM.
Performing power management operations on a VM
1. To perform power management operations with a VM, select the required VM, and click the Power button.
2. In the drop-down list, select the required option: Shutdown, Restart, Pause, Resume, Start, Save, Turn Off, or Reset.
Performing VM migration
1. To perform migration operations with a VM, select the required VM, and expand the Migrate drop-down list.
2. In the drop-down list, select the required action: Live Migration or Quick Migration.
Accessing the VM console
1. To access the VM console, select the required VM, and click the Console button.
Modify the existing VM settings
1. To modify the existing VM settings, select the required VM, and click the Edit icon.
2. Specify the required settings and click Save.
Deleting a VM
1. To delete an existing VM, select the required VM, shut it down, and click the Delete icon.
NOTE: StarWind Command Center does not allow deleting running VMs.
Cloning a VM
1. To clone a VM, select the required instance, shut it down, and click the Clone icon.
NOTE: StarWind Command Center does not allow cloning running VMs.
2. Specify the clone VM name if needed, select the destination node and a virtual volume that will store disks and configuration files of a cloned VM. Click Confirm.
STORAGE
The STORAGE item provides View and Manage tabs.
View
This tab consists of the following widgets.
1. Virtual Volume(s) Availability – provides information on the availability of the virtual volumes.
2. Storage Summary – provides information on storage availability and available capacity.
3. Performance – provides information on the following metrics: IOPS, Disk Throughput, and Cluster-Wide Controller Latency.
4. Tasks and Events (Storage) – provides information on the running and finished tasks and events related to virtual volumes.
Manage
Manage tab delivers the ability to create new virtual volumes, remove them, or modify the settings of the existing ones.
Creating a new virtual volume
1. To create a new volume, click the Add icon.
2. Specify the disk name, size in GB, and replication factor.
Availability can be set to the following values:
Simple – StarWind virtual volume which is not replicated
Two-Way mirror – 2-way replicated StarWind HA virtual volume
Three-Way mirror – 3-way replicated StarWind HA virtual volume
NOTE: The availability of the options depends on the number of StarWind nodes.
3. If required, enable the RAM cache under the Advanced settings section, specify the size in MB and cache type, and click Create.
Deleting a virtual volume
1. To remove the existing virtual volume, select the required volume and click the Deletion icon.
Modifying the virtual volume settings
1. To modify the existing virtual volume settings, select the required virtual volume and click the Edit icon.
2. Specify the required settings and click Save.
Performing maintenance on a virtual volume
1. To perform maintenance operations on a virtual volume, select the required virtual volume and click the Maintenance button.
2. In the drop-down list, select the required option: Bring Online, Take Offline, Move, Turn on Maintenance Mode, and Turn off Maintenance Mode.
NETWORK
The NETWORK item provides 3 additional tabs:
Virtual Switches – delivers information about virtual switches.
Cluster Networks – delivers information about the networks used and their roles in the cluster.
Network Adapters – provides information about the network adapters.
NODES
The NODES item provides View and Manage tabs.
View
This tab consists of the following widgets:
1. Node(s) Summary – provides information on the overall state of the nodes and their health status.
2. VM(s) Distribution Summary – provides information on the VM distribution across cluster nodes.
3. Resource Usage – provides information on CPU, memory, and storage utilization.
4. Performance – provides information on CPU and memory usage, IOPS, disk throughput, and disk IO latency of the selected nodes.
5. Tasks and Events (Nodes) – provides information on the running and finished tasks and events on the cluster nodes.
Manage
Manage tab delivers the ability to remove the existing nodes and perform maintenance and power management.
Accessing the node console
To open the node console, select the required node and click the Remote Access button.
Performing maintenance operations on the nodes
1. To perform the maintenance operations on the nodes, select the required node and click the Maintenance button.
2. From the drop-down list, select the required operation: Pause, Resume, Start Cluster Service, or Stop Cluster Service.
Performing power management operations on the nodes
1. To perform power management operation on a node, select the required one and navigate to the Power tab.
2. From the drop-down list, select the required action: Restart, Shutdown, Power On, Power Off, or Reset.
NOTE: To activate Power on, Power off, and Reset options, click the gear icon, navigate to the NODES tab and configure physical management settings there.
TASKS AND EVENTS
This item delivers information on the tasks and events running in StarWind Command Center.
Tasks
The Tasks tab provides information on tasks performed in StarWind Command Center. The Tasks tab displays the task name, Command Center entity type where this task has been performed, entity name, owner of the task, its status, and timestamp.
Events
The Events tab contains information on the events that occurred in StarWind Command Center. The Events tab displays the event severity level, event source, time of the event, its description, entity type where the event has occurred, entity name, number of occurrences, and the current event status.
1. To check the events in the StarWind Command Center, navigate to the Events tab.
2. To mark the recent event as Acknowledged or Resolved, select the event and select the required option.
General Configuration
Modifying Cluster Settings
To modify the cluster settings, click the gear icon in the top right corner of the StarWind Command Center interface.
Modifying General Settings
To modify the general StarWind Command Center settings such as IP address, gateway, DNS Server IP address, security settings, time zone, and appearance, click Edit in the General tab.
Modifying the Cluster Network Settings
To modify the cluster network settings, navigate to the Cluster tab, expand Cluster IP address, and click Edit.
Modifying the Cluster Node Settings
1. To modify the node network settings, navigate to the Nodes tab and expand the Cluster node IP.
2. To allow physical node management via IDRAC or ILO, click Enable physical management, specify the required credentials, and click Save.
Modifying the Storage Node Settings
1. To manage the storage node settings, navigate to the Storage tab, expand the required node, and click Edit.
2. Modify the required settings and click Save.
Adding a New Storage Node
1. To add a new storage node, click the + Add Node button in the Storage tab.
2. Specify the Storage node IP, Port, Login, and Password of the new storage node.
3. Select the network interfaces for synchronization, heartbeat, and iSCSI.
NOTE: The network interfaces used for iSCSI and synchronization come already preconfigured in StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and should not be modified. Same IP addresses cannot be used for different purposes.
NOTE: StarWind Virtual SAN requires dedicated physical channels for iSCSI and synchronization. A redundant heartbeat channel can go over the management link. See StarWind VSAN system requirements for more details here: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/system-requirements
Configuring Image Library
Adding an image file
1. To add an image file, navigate to the Image Library tab and click the Add icon.
2. Specify the required name, placement, and image source and click Add.
Editing image file settings
1. To edit the existing image file settings, select the required image file and click the Edit icon.
2. Specify the new name if required, add a description and click Save.
Rescanning image files
1. To rescan the image files, click the Rescan icon.
2. Select the required virtual volume and click Scan.
Deleting an image file
1. To delete the existing image file, select the required one and click the Delete icon.
2. Click Confirm.
Collecting support bundle
1. To provide StarWind Support Team with information on the issues with the virtualized environment, click Download support bundle.
2. Select the logs to provide StarWind Support Team with and click Download.
