Datacenters Test

A datacenter is the primary container of inventory objects such as hosts and virtual machines. From the datacenter, you can add and organize inventory objects. Typically, you can add hosts and folders, to a datacenter.

This test auto-discovers the datacenters managed by VC and reports on the configuration of each datacenter – i.e., how many ESX hosts, VMs, networks, clusters, and datastores are available in every datacenter.

Target of the test : A VMware vCenter server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the every datacenter:datastore combination being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The host for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to.

VC User and VC Password

To connect to vCenter and extract metrics from it, this test should be configured with the name and password of a user with Administrator or Virtual Machine Administrator privileges to vCenter. However, if, owing to security constraints, you are not able to use the credentials of such users for test configuration, then you can configure this test with the credentials of a user with Read-only rights to vCenter. For this purpose, you can assign the ‘Read-only’ role to a local/domain user to vCenter, and then specify name and password of this user against the VC User and VC Password text boxes. The steps for assigning this role to a user on vCenter have been detailed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures chapter

vCenter servers terminate user sessions based on timeout periods. The default timeout period is 30 mins. When you stop an agent, sessions currently in use by the agent will remain open for this timeout period until vCenter times out the session. If the agent is restarted within the timeout period, it will open a new set of sessions. If you want the eG agent to close already existing sessions on vCenter before it opens new sessions, then, instead of the ‘Read-only’ user, you can optionally configure the VC User and VC Password parameters with the credentials of a user with permissions to View and Stop Sessions on vCenter. For this purpose, you can create a special role on vCenter, grant the View and Stop Sessions privilege (prior to vCenter 4.1, this was called the View and Terminate Sessions privilege) to this role, and then assign the new role to a local/domain user to vCenter. The steps for this have been discussed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures chapter.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it in this text box.

SSL

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

Webport

By default, in most virtualized environments, vCenter listens on port 80 (if not SSL-enabeld) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled) only. This implies that while monitoring vCenter, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 80 or 443, depending upon the SSL-enabled status of vCenter – i.e., if vCenter is not SSL-enabled (i.e., if the SSL flag above is set to No), then the eG agent connects to vCenter using port 80 by default, and if vCenter is SSL-enabled (i.e., if the ssl flag is set to Yes), then the agent-vCenter communication occurs via port 443 by default.  Accordingly, the Webport parameter is set to default by default. 

In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, against the Webport parameter, you can specify the exact port at which vCenter in your environment listens, so that the eG agent communicates with that port for collecting metrics from vCenter.

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

ESX servers in datacenter

Indicates the number of ESX servers in this datacenter.

Number

 

ESX servers directly assigned to datacenter

Indicates the number of ESX servers that are directly connected to the datacenter.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists those ESX servers that are directly assigned to this datacenter – i.e., those that are not under clusters.

ESX servers under clusters in datacenter

Indicates the number of ESX servers in the datacenter that are under clusters.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the ESX servers that are under clusters.

VMs in datacenter

Indicates the number of VMs in the datacenter.

Number

 

VMs directly assigned to servers in datacenter

Indicates the number of VMs directly assigned to this datacenter.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the VMs that directly assigned to this datacenter – i.e., those that are not under a cluster.

VMs under clusters in datacenter

Indicates the number of VMs in a cluster.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the VMs that are in a cluster.

Clusters in datacenter

Indicates the number of clusters configured within a datacenter.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the clusters in the datacenter, and the IP address and name of the ESX servers that are under each cluster.

Networks in datacenter

Indicates the number of networks in this datacenter.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the networks in the datacenter.

Datastores in datacenter

Indicates the number of datastores in this datacenter.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure, if enabled, lists the datastores in the datacenter.

The detailed diagnosis of the Esx servers under cluster measure lists the name and IP address of ESX servers that are under clusters configured on datacenters.

DDesxserversundercluster

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Esx servers under cluster

The detailed diagnosis of the Directly connected vms measure lists the name of the guests that are directly assigned to the datacenter, IP address of ESX server that hosts the guest, and the name of the ESX server.

DDdirectlyconnectedvms-final

Figure 2 : The detailed diagnosis of the Directly connected vms measure

The detailed diagnosis of the VMs under cluster measure lists the name of the guests under a cluster, IP address of ESX server that hosts the guest, and the name of the ESX server.

DDvmsundercluster-final

Figure 3 : The detailed diagnosis of the VMs under cluster measure