If you've set up a new Nutanix cluster, you've seen the popup during the initial login that asks if you want to disable Pulse (not recommended). Yes, that one.
So you may be wondering, what will it send and why would I want to enable this?
The purpose and scope of Pulse data is cluster health monitoring. The data sent to Nutanix includes hardware, software, and firmware version information, storage usage and configuration details, resiliency status, CVM health status information, and some limited detail about VMs on the cluster. In the Pulse settings UI in Prism you have the option to enable or disable additional support information such as entity names, so you can keep those user-friendly names private if needed.
More complete detail on what gets included in Pulse data transmissions can be found in the document Nutanix Pulse and Remote Diagnostics, or in the article "What is in a Pulse submission to Nutanix?"
So why send this data to Nutanix? The short answer is “so that Nutanix Support can help you more quickly.”
The system details and diagnostic data collected enable Nutanix to identify systems which may be exposed to known issues. Nutanix uses this system to identify and proactively notify customers of potential issues, often before any impact occurs. Depending on the severity of the potential issue that notification might be just an alert shown on the support portal, or an email may be sent to the designated support contact(s), or a Nutanix SRE may proactively open a case and reach out by phone. It’s part of Nutanix’s larger efforts to minimize downtime, along with alert-generated cases and product features like software-driven upgrades.
It is worth noting, if you have a third party providing support, such as OEM support for Dell or Lenovo nodes running Nutanix, the first point of contact notified for proactive cases is usually the third party support team.
If you’d like to know more about what kinds of things automatically generate a case at Nutanix, check out the article “Which Alerts Automatically Generate a Support Case with Nutanix Support?”
If you haven’t taken a look lately, or if you’d just like to see for yourself how Nutanix is using your cluster health data, check out the details on your Nutanix nodes athttps://portal.nutanix.com and look for the “My Insights” information panel.
For more information on how to enable Pulse and make sure it’s working, check out the Prism Web Console Guide or perhaps take a look at my earlier post here.