Server virtualization handling VMware vSphere has been widely embraced for several years and has gained a considerable market share.
Monitoring a virtualized environment is critical, as each failure will affect many more services than a non-virtualized environment.
VMware vSphere collects data on inventory performance and resource usage and archives it in a vCenter Server database.
Inventory objects are all physical or virtual components of your environment that can be tracked and alerted, including virtual machines, ESXi hosts, clusters, and resources. vSphere has built-in tools that provide you with access to monitoring data instantly.
In this post, we will cover two primary tools for accessing vSphere metrics so you can get an idea of the inventory objects that make up your virtual environment.
Contents
- 1 vSphere Data Collection Intervals and Levels
- 2 Data Collection Levels
- 3 Practice the vSphere Client to Monitor Your Environment
- 4 Physical Server Monitoring
- 5 The Layer of a Virtual Machine, as Seen From the Hypervisor
- 6 Visualize Key Metrics With Performance Charts
- 7 View vSphere Tasks and Events
- 8 Set Alarms on Your Metrics
- 9 Conclusion
vSphere Data Collection Intervals and Levels
Large vSphere environment issues a good amount of monitoring data. To prevent database overload on your vCenter Server, you can control the amount of data that vSphere accumulates and the amount of time that data is retained by placing data collection intervals along with data collection levels.
Data Collection Levels
There are four levels of data collection (levels 1 to 4). Each collection level defines how much tracking data vSphere will collect at each collection interval.
By default, collection intervals contain level 1 metrics, including primary review data, such as virtual machine CPU usage and disk latency.
Each subsequent level of the collection includes all metrics preceding it, along with additional data.
For example, Collection Level 4 has all metrics available at recovery levels 1, 2, and 3 and minimum and maximum collection values (total CPU usage and memory).
Practice the vSphere Client to Monitor Your Environment
Administrators can obtain all data collected by vSphere through the vSphere client. The vSphere client is a web-based application that connects and allows users to interact with the vCenter Server. The vSphere client lets you track your virtual environment, allowing you to:
- visualize key metrics with performance charts
- set alarms on your metrics
- view tasks and events
- export logs
Physical Server Monitoring
Many servers provide an out-of-range management controller for environmental parameter control.
These controllers work independently of each operating system and usually provide a good overview of your server hardware, such as temperatures, fans, power supplies, and more.
Server hardware monitoring via ESXi hypervisor
The VMware Host Hardware Status (SOAP) sensor observes the hardware status of the VMware host server practicing the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).
Displays the total number of items on average, alert, and warning level, just as reported by the vSphere client.
This sensor is planned to provide you with a general overview of your host status, and all conditions other than “normal” will be written in the sensor message. It is an excellent sensor to see the overall rate, but you do not get the details of the hardware metrics.
The Layer of a Virtual Machine, as Seen From the Hypervisor
If the VMware environment consists of multiple servers where VMs are not connected to a particular ESXi server, make sure you set this sensor to Virtual Center instead of the ESXi server.
Otherwise, simple VM migration (like vMotion) between ESXi hosts will trigger a false VM alarm. PRTG creates one VM sensor that you select in the Add Sensor dialog.
Visualize Key Metrics With Performance Charts
The vSphere client displays data about the health and performance of your inventory items in the form of performance charts. Inventory objects have two types of graphs for implementation in vSphere:
- overview charts
- advanced charts
View vSphere Tasks and Events
In addition to tracking key metrics from your vSphere environment, you can also use the vSphere Client to track the activity of your ESXi and VM hosts through tasks and events.
Events include user logins and VM activation and configuration changes, such as enabling or disabling SSH access to the ESXi host.
Tasks are actions in your vSphere environment that can be scheduled, such as VM migrations and adding ESXi hosts to an existing cluster.
Set Alarms on Your Metrics
Instead of manually tracking all your data to look for signs of a problem, you can also use the vSphere client to automatically set alarms to notify you if a situation occurs in your area.
Alarms can be set to activate for resource capacity and conditions (for example, if ESXi host memory usage exceeds a certain threshold) and events (for example, when the host loses network connection).
Conclusion
VMware vSphere is the imperative data centre virtualization stage. VMware vSphere cheat sheet contributes an introduction to what you need to know about vSphere.
VMware has steadily lowered its vSphere entry barrier. Moreover, the minimum recommendation for a vSphere cluster demands a shared storage infrastructure and three physical hosts.
A dedicated shared array is no longer required since the introduction of vSAN. VMware also works with public cloud providers to provide a vSphere compatible infrastructure, and vSphere has three public cloud options.
