As I have spent sometime evaluating PHD Virtual Monitor to post the review on my Backup & Disaster Recovery/Management blog TSMGuru Blog, I have went through the installation/configuration process and thought I may as well share them on here for people trying to install or just test PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware. On here, I will be showing how to quickly get up and running with PHD Virtual Monitor, though if you want to read my review of it before testing it your self you can find it at: PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware Review

Before you start you will need to make sure the below prerequisite are met by the machine you will use for PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware:

– First of all make sure you are using a supported operating system. PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware is supported by the following Operating Systems.

• Windows XP
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2008 32-bit or 64-bit.

– The machine where you are setting up PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware should have at least 2GB of RAM and a 4GB page file.

– Static IP is highly recommended

– For the testing environment or an environment with less than 50 devices to monitor, the default Microsoft SQL Express will be sufficient. For larger environments, you will need to install a database server. PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware support both Oracle & Microsoft SQL as a back-end database. For specific database support, you will need to revert back to PHD Virtual Monitor installation manual included with trial download. For our purpose in here, we will just use the build it in database.

Below is a summary of the steps you need to follow to initially install and configure PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware:

1-    Download PHD Virtual Monitor. You can get a free trial from http://www.phdvirtual.com/trial-monitor-vmware
2-    Double Click the installable file. In my case it was  phdvm_10124_setup64.exe
3-    Hit next on welcome screen
4-    Agree to the license agreement and hit next
5-    Choose installation path and hit next

6-    Review your installation answers and hit next
7-    Click next on the Install SQL Express Database screen. Remember we are only using this setup for testing purposes. If you are planning to use the setup for production or grow it up at a later stage then you will need to use a full fledged database software as the SQL Express version included with PHD Virtual Monitor is only meant to be used for testing and very size limited scenarios.

8-    Hit finish on the installation completed wizard.
9-    Hit Configure Virtual Environment
10-    Hit next on the requirements page in the configuration wizard
11-    On the configuration step of the configuration wizard hit add and fill your vCenter info.  You will need to insert your vCenter IP or FQDN as well your vCenter Username and password. After completing all the required info hit next.
12-    Choose the hosts you want to include in your monitoring. In my lab I choose all the available hosts, but you have the choice to choose only a subset of your hosts.

13-    Install the Virtual Center plugin if you want to access Virtual Monitor from vCenter as well hit finished.

14- now you are ready to start testing the product .

15- The below screen shots show few of the monitoring screens that you can use as well to monitor different part of your infrastructure:

I hope this post help some one get his lab of PHD Virtual Monitor for VMware setup faster. Please leave your feedback & questions in the comments area below.