The all new vRealize Log Insight(vRLI) version 3.3.x comes with great new enhancements , but two key features hog the limelight,

 

#1 New Product Licensing

vRealize Log Insight 3.3 includes the ability to use 25 OSI available licenses at no additional cost with the use of a vCenter Server STD installation.

 

 

This means that you get vRLI clubbed with vCenter license and you get a good insight into its advanced capabilities. More details on how the licensing work is outlined here FAQs

 

 

#2 Importer Utility

A new importer utility is available to support importing old logs and support bundles via the Log Insight ingestion API. This utility is available as an executable for Windows and Linux, supports a manifest file that is almost identical to an agent configuration file (only difference is the directory option), can ingest messages based on their timestamp (requires authentication) and supports compressed (zip/gzip/tar) as well as recursive directory imports.

 

 

This new feature lets you work with offline logs, i.e.  you can process log bundles extracted from product, as opposed to configuring production servers to direct logs to vRLI.

Hence if there were impediments in deploying vRLI in the environment such as security approvals , budget approvals or business justification to procure the product and leverage it, the above two features helps to get things moving by building out an isolated setup & loading the logs for offline analysis.

This can be the first line of attack for administrators before engaging VMware Support.

I will follow up this blog with some sample & guidelines on setting it up.

 

Happy troubleshooting…