Virtana Global View is built to give teams a unified, real-time lens into their hybrid infrastructure: cloud, on-prem, and containerized. This quarter, we’re rolling out four new capabilities that give you more control, better filtering, and deeper context across environments:
- Resource Grouping Across Hybrid Infrastructure
- End-to-End Topology Enhancements
- Storage and Compute Dashboard Custom Properties (e.g., applications, business units, etc.)
- Google Cloud Right Sizing for GCE
These updates were designed based on direct customer feedback. Below, we break down what’s new, what you can do with it, and how to get started.
Custom Resource Grouping Across Hybrid Infrastructure
How This Helps You:
As environments grow more complex, tagging isn’t enough. You need the ability to define, view, and filter resource groups that match the way your organization actually operates dynamically, whether by workload, region, data center, or any other meaningful property.
Key Capabilities:
- Group resources across cloud, on-prem, and Kubernetes environments
- Include mixed resource types (VMs, containers, databases, storage systems)
- Group based on tags or custom properties sourced from Virtana Infrastructure Observability (IO) and Container Observability (CO)
- Resources can belong to multiple groups
- Groups update dynamically as infrastructure changes (every 30 minutes or on demand)
- Role-based access controls:
- Admins can create/edit/delete groups
- Read-only users can view and filter by groups
- Filter by Resource Group across: Topology
Benefits:
- Faster root cause analysis: Filter views to isolate specific workloads or teams
- Improved governance: Group resources by business unit, SLA level, lifecycle stage or any other custom properties
- Smarter dashboarding: Build targeted dashboards using group filters
- Operational clarity: Makes large environments more manageable
How to Get Started:
- Navigate to the Global View > Settings -> Resource Groups.
- Create a new group using predefined tags or custom properties.
Pro Tip: Use consistent tagging strategies across Virtana IO and CO for the best grouping results.
End-to-End Topology Enhancements
How This Helps You:
Understanding how services and infrastructure components interact, especially across hybrid environments, is critical to diagnosing performance issues and planning for scale. These new topology features help surface those relationships more clearly.
Key Capabilities:
- Use Resource Groups as filters in the Topology view
- See entity properties directly on nodes (e.g., Compute, Storage, Memory free/available)
- Categorization by type: Compute, Network, Storage, On-Prem vs. Cloud
- Group nodes visually by logical or physical connection
- View and expand from a collapsible, infinite scroll inventory list
- Detect unused or disconnected resources
Benefits:
- Fewer blind spots: Understand interdependencies between infrastructure components
- Faster impact analysis: When something breaks, see what’s affected downstream
- Optimization opportunities: Spot unused assets to decommission or reallocate
- Improved onboarding: Easier for new team members to understand infrastructure layout
How to Get Started:
- Head to Global View > Topology.
- Filter by Resource Group, Applications etc. to focus on a subset of your environment.
- Click on nodes to see properties; click + to drill down.
- Use the infinite scroll inventory list to locate and highlight specific entities.
Pro Tip: Combine topology filtering with historical alert data to surface impacted applications
Storage and Compute Dashboard – Filter by Custom Properties
How This Helps You:
Storage and compute environments often present some of the most complex and costly challenges in hybrid infrastructure. Teams need to analyze usage trends, identify decommission candidates, and forecast future needs, not just react to alerts.
Key Capabilities:
- Filter storage and compute data by:
- Name, Vendor, Model
- Location, Business Unit, Zone (via custom tags from IO)
- EOL date (with range filters like 0–6 months, 1–5 years, etc.)
- Click on show more to see detailed metrics (Total Capacity, Used, % Used)
- Choose between metrics: Actual Metrics, or Utilization Percentage
- Show historical usage trends up to 12 months
Benefits:
- Smarter capacity planning: Use trends to plan decommissioning or expansion
- Custom views for different stakeholders: Finance teams, infra teams, and auditors can each get relevant insights
- Tag-driven insights: Leverage Virtana IO tags to unlock location-aware reporting and lifecycle visibility
How to Get Started:
- Go to Global View > Dashboards -> On-Premises Storage Array Cost and Capacity Summary.
- For compute, go to Global View > Dashboards -> On-Premises Compute Cost and Capacity Summary.
- Apply filters based on vendor, location, EOL, or other properties.
- Use hover and trend controls to evaluate performance.
Pro Tip: Align your Business Unit/Zone/EOL tagging in IO first to maximize dashboard utility.
Google Cloud Right Sizing for GCE
How This Helps You:
Right-sizing is one of the most effective ways to reduce cloud waste. Virtana Cloud Cost Management (CCM) is expanding its capabilities in supporting Google Cloud environments.
Key Capabilities:
- Right-sizing recommendations for:
- Google Compute Engine (GCE)
- Displayed directly in the new Overview Dashboard
- Updates to the Default Right Sizing Policy to support GCP resource types
- Build Custom Policies to set constraints based on workload/application
- Recommendations scoped by Project (initial implementation)
- Maintains a seven-day optimization window and historical reports
Benefits:
- Expand cost visibility to GCP: No more blind spots in your cloud optimization strategy
- Drive action with contextual recommendations: Tie idle and overprovisioned resources to specific workloads or teams
How to Get Started:
- Add a Google Cloud Data Source in Virtana.
- Visit the Overview Dashboard to view right-sizing insights.
- Build or adjust Right Sizing Policies to reflect business constraints.
- Free-tier users will see a summary view with limited customization.
Note: Virtana pulls recommendations directly from Google APIs rather than generating them internally. This ensures alignment with GCP best practices.
Need Help Getting Started? Check out our updated documentation here:
Virtana Docs: Global View Setup & Features
On-Premises VM Compute Capacity Summary
On-Premises Storage Array Cost and Capacity Summary
Questions or feedback? Drop us a line; we’d love to hear how you’re using Global View.
Topology
Meeta Lalwani
