VMware vCenter Servers
Applications Manager can discover your entire VMware virtual infrastructure through the vCenter server. The VMware virtual infrastructure groups allows you to discover virtual resources and categorize them into components such as Data Center, Cluster, ESX/ESXi hosts, etc.
Discover Virtual Infrastructure through vCenter
Supported Versions: vCenter 6.0 and above
Prerequisites for monitoring VMware vCenter server: Refer here
Follow the steps given below to discover and configure virtual infrastructure monitoring through vCenter:
- Go to New Monitor → Add New Monitor.
- Select VCenter under the Virtualization category.
- Specify the Display Name of the VMware vCenter server.
- Enter the Host Name or IP Address of the host where the VMware vCenter server is running.
- Enter the Port where the server is running.
- Enter the credential details like User Name and Password for authentication, or select the required credentials from the Credential Manager list by enabling the Select from Credential list option.
- Specify the Polling Interval in minutes.
- Select the appropriate SSL Version from the dropdown menu (e.g: TLSv1.2).
- Enable Collect host metrics via vCenter if monitoring is required for the ESXi host using vCenter credentials.
- Select the VM Discovery option based on which the virtual machines should be discovered and monitored. The available options are Do not discover, Discover VM but do not monitor metrics, and Discover and Monitor VM metrics.
For the Discover VM but do not monitor metrics (Will not count for licensing) and Discover and Monitor VM metrics options, you can also specify the Discovery Filter Regex based on which the virtual machines are to be discovered and monitored. Learn more.
- Click on Fetch ESX Hosts to initiate the discovery process.
To learn more about Virtual infrastructure monitoring in Applications Manager, click here.
Monitored Parameters
VMware Virtual Infrastructure groups will be listed among monitor groups and can be accessed from the 'Monitor Group' view under the Monitors tab. Within the VMware Virtual Infrastructure group, the Summary tab provides an overall view of the components of the VMware virtual infrastructure and their health status. It shows you the number of datacenters, clusters, resource pools, ESX hosts, VMs, datastores and network components present in the vCenter server.
- Data Centers
The Summary tab displays the overall health status of the infrastructure present just below the vCenter server level. For example, if your vCenter has data centers configured, the ‘Summary’ tab will show the health status of the datacenters. You can drill down into a Data Center and view the health of its underlying components such as Clusters. If the health status of the Data Center turns critical, you can perform root cause analysis to troubleshoot the issue.
- Clusters
Clusters are displayed one level below the Data Center view. As is the case with the Data Center view, you can drill down into a cluster and view the health of the underlying components such as ESX/ESXi hosts, VMs, etc. If the health of a cluster is found to be critical, you can perform root cause analysis to troubleshoot the issue. At the cluster level, you can also view the DRS migration report that shows the movement of virtual machines from one ESX host to another.
- Resource Pool
In the next level, correlated performance metrics of the resource pool is displayed. You can monitor and manage your server’s current CPU/memory usage, reservation and allocation statistics. This data can be used to re-allocate or organize resources for the server or cluster accordingly.
Summary
The Summary tab also shows the following performance metrics at both data center and cluster levels:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| ESX/ESXi Host Details |
| Name | The name of VMware ESX/ESXi server monitor |
| Datacenter | The name of the Datacenter to which the ESX host belongs |
| Cluster | The name of the cluster to which the ESX host belongs |
| CPU (%) | The CPU utilization of the ESX/ESXi host (in %). |
| Memory (%) | The percentage of memory used across the ESX/ESXi host. |
| Network (KBps) | The network usage of the ESX/ESXi host (in KBps). |
| Disk I/O (KBps) | The disk usage of the ESX/ESXi host (in KBps). |
| Cluster Details |
| Cluster Name | The name of the vCenter cluster |
| Datacenter | The datacenter to which this cluster belongs |
| Effective CPU | Effective CPU resources (in MB) available to run virtual machines. This is the aggregated effective resource level from all running hosts. |
| CPU Cores | The number of physical CPU cores. Physical CPU cores are the processors contained by a CPU package. |
| CPU Threads | The aggregated number of CPU threads. |
| Tolerated Failover | Number of failures that can be tolerated by the VMware HA. |
| Memory Utilization | The percentage of memory used across the cluster. |
| Consumed Memory | The memory utilized so far (in MB). |
| Total Memory | The amount of memory used by this cluster |
| Effective Memory | Effective memory resources (in MB) available to run virtual machines. This is the aggregated effective resource level from all running hosts. |
| Active Memory | The amount of memory that is actively used measured (in MB). |
| Swap Memory | The amount of memory that is swapped. |
| Resource Pool Details |
| Overall CPU Usage | The total amount of CPU resources utilized measured (in MHz). |
| Maximum CPU Usage | The maximum amount of CPU resources utilized measured (in MHz). |
| CPU Reservation | The amount of CPU resources reserved for a virtual machine measured (in Mhz). |
| CPU Allocation Limit | The amount of CPU resources allocated to a virtual machine measured (in Mhz). |
| Overall Memory Usage | The total amount of RAM being used by a virtual machine measured (in MB). |
| Maximum Memory Usage | The maximum amount of RAM that can be used by a virtual machine measured (in MB). |
| Memory Reservation | The amount of RAM reserved for a virtual machine measured (in MB). |
| Memory Allocation Limit | The amount of RAM allocated to a virtual machine measured (in MB). |
Business View
In the Business View tab, you can configure business views that help you visually represent the interdependencies between your VMware virtual infrastructure as well as view their health status. In the Dashboards tab, you can configure custom dashboards by adding widgets.
Dashboard
In the In the Dashboards Tab, dashboards can be used to create your own custom pages by adding widgets. By using Custom Dashboards feature, you can create Dashboards of your choice - like Status View of all the Databases, Status view of all Web Applications deployed in Tomcat Server. If you make a Dashboard as template the same Dashboard can be reused across the Monitor Groups .
| Note: The DRS Migration Report will be shown only when the DRS is in automatic mode. |
