Configuring Windows Virtual Machines to Support the Inside View Using the eG VM Agent

To obtain the inside view of a Windows VM, the eG agent offers two options. The first option uses Windows File & Print Sharing services to push monitoring components to the VMs. These monitoring components are then executed on the VM to collect metrics from the VMs. To push monitoring components to the VM and to periodically invoke these components, the eG agent requires Domain Administrator Privileges to all the VMs being monitored.

In many production environments, strict security restrictions are enforced, and it may not be possible to configure a monitoring solution with domain administration privileges for each of the VMs. To handle such environments, the eG VM monitor uses a lightweight monitoring component called the eG VM Agent, which is installed inside each of the VMs to obtain metrics regarding the health of the VMs. The eG VM Agent can be best described as a software that can be installed on the Windows virtual machines of a virtual infrastructure to allow a single eG agent to obtain an inside view of these VMs, without domain administrator privileges.