OVM VM Details Test

This test monitors the amount of the physical server's resources that each virtual machine on an Oracle VM server is taking up. Using the metrics reported by this test, administrators can determine which virtual machine is taking up most CPU, which guest is taking up the maximum resources.

Target of the test : Oracle VM Server

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each VM on the Oracle VM Server being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured.

Port

The port at which the specified Host listens. By default, this is NULL.

Oracle VM Manager, Oracle VM Manager User, Oracle VM Manager Password, and Confirm Password

This test remotely connects to the Oracle VM Manager that manages the monitored Oracle VM Server and uses the web services API of the Oracle VM Manager to pull out metrics of interest. To enable this test to communicate with the web services API, you first need to configure the test with the IP address or host name of the Oracle VM Manager. This can be done using the Oracle VM Manager text box. Then, you need to configure the test with the credentials of a user with Admin rights to the Oracle VM Manager. Use the Oracle VM Manager User and Oracle VM Manager Password parameters to configure these credentials. Finally, confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

SSL

By default, the Oracle VM Manager is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the Oracle VM Manager via HTTPS by default.

WebPort

By default,, the Oracle VM Manager listens on 7002. This implies that while monitoring an Oracle VM server via an SSL-enabled Oracle VM Manager, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 7002 of the Oracle VM Manager to pull out metrics. In some environments however, this default port may not apply. In such a case, against the WebPort parameter, you can specify the exact port at which the Oracle VM Manager in your environment listens so that the eG agent communicates with that port.

Exclude VMs

Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your exclude vms specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs.

Ignore VMs Inside View

Administrators of some high security Oracle environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your ignore vms inside view specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on an Oracle VM server by default.

Note:

While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the ignore vms inside view text box.

Inside View Using

By default, this test obtains the “inside view” of VMs using the eG VM Agent. Accordingly, the Inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent by default. The eG VM Agent is a piece of software, which should be installed on every VM on a hypervisor. Every time the eG agent runs this test, it uses the eG VM Agent to pull relevant 'inside view' metrics from each VM. Once the metrics are collected, the eG agent then communicates with each VM agent and pulls these metrics, without requiring administrator privileges. Refer to Configuring the Remote Agent to Obtain the Inside View of VMs for more details on the eG VM Agent.

Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, and Confirm Password

By default, these parameters are set to none. This is because, by default, the eG agent collects 'inside view' metrics using the eG VM agent on each VM. Domain administrator privileges need not be granted to the eG agent if it uses this default approach to obtain the 'inside view' of Windows VMs.

Ignore WINNT

By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the Ignore WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

VM state

Indicates the current operational state of this VM.

 

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are discussed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Stopped 0
Running 1
Starting 2
Stopping 3
Suspended 4
Template 5

Note:

By default, this measure reports one of the values listed under Measure Values to indicate the current status of VM. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the numeric equivalents only.

vCpu count

Indicates the number of virtual CPUs allocated to this VM.

Number

 

Max vCpu limit

Indicates the number of processors that this VM is allowed to make use of.

Number

 

Virtual processor utilization

Indicates the percentage of the vCPUs allowed for use that is currently in use.

Percent

A high value for this measure indicates that the VM is consuming too many vCPUs. Compare this value across VMs to know which VM is consuming the maximum vCPUs.

Physical processor utilization

Indicates the percentage of the physical CPUs currently used by this VM.

Percent

A high value for this measure indicates that the VM is consuming too many vCPUs physical CPUs. A probable cause for high CPU utilization is the presence of one or more CPU-intensive processes on the VM.

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to identify the CPU-intensive processes running on a VM.

vCpu priority

Indicates CPU priority value set for for this VM when scheduling.

Number

 

vCpu cap

Indicates the maximum number of CPUs used by this VM, as per the credit scheduler.

Number

Oracle VM’s default CPU scheduler is the credit scheduler. The credit scheduler uses a credit/debit system to fairly share CPU resources between virtual machines. Credits are assigned to each running virtual machine, along with the allocated fraction of CPU resources. The credit scheduler continually increments/decrements credits from running virtual machines, which is how the credit scheduler balances CPU resources.

Current memory

Indicates the amount of memory currently used by this VM.

MB

 

Allocated memory

Indicates the amount of memory allocated to this VM.

MB

 

Memory limit

Indicates the maximum amount of memory that this VM can consume.

MB

 

Physical memory utilization

Indicates the percentage of physical memory used by this VM.

Percent

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM is consuming the maximum memory.

A high value for this measure indicates that the VM is consuming memory resources excessively. One of the common causes for this is the execution of one/more memory-intensive operations on the VM.

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to identify the memory-intensive processes running on a VM.

Disk capacity

Indicates the total disk capacity of this VM.

MB

 

Huge pages

Indicates whether/not Huge Pages are enabled for this VM.

 

Paging is a process whereby the CPU, for a system, allocates contiguous blocks of memory for use by a running process. These pages are tracked by the operating system, so that processes access the correct blocks of assigned memory. Typically, these blocks are sized at 4 KB. This means that when a process uses 1 GB of memory, 262144 page (1 GB/4 KB) entries are created and are referenced continually by the process.

Most current CPU architectures support bigger pages to reduce the number of page lookups required by the CPU or Operating System. On Linux systems, these are called Huge Pages, while on Windows systems they are called Large Pages. These terminologies are equivalent.

Oracle VM Manager provides an option to enable huge page support for a paravirtualized virtual machine when you create or edit a virtual machine. Huge pages are not supported on virtual machines running on SPARC architecture. Attempting to enable Huge Page support for a virtual machine running on a SPARC server, causes an exception to be returned.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are discussed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Enabled 1
Disabled 0

Note:

By default, this measure reports one of the values listed under Measure Values to indicate whether/not Huge Pages are enabled for a VM. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the numeric equivalents only.

High availability

Indicates whether/not high availability is enabled for this VM.

 

You can set up High Availability to help ensure the uninterrupted availability of a virtual machine. If HA is configured and a Oracle VM Server is restarted or shut down, the virtual machines running on it are either restarted on, or migrated to, another Oracle VM Server.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are discussed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Enabled 1
Disabled 0

Note:

By default, this measure reports one of the values listed under Measure Values to indicate whether/not HA is enabled for a VM. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the numeric equivalents only.