Distributed vSwitch Ports Test

A vSphere distributed vSwitch act as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts. This allows virtual machines to maintain a consistent network configuration as they migrate across hosts. A distributed port group is a port group associated with a vSphere distributed switch and specifies port configuration option for each member of port. Distributed port groups define how a connection is made through the vSphere distributed switch in a network. Uplink ports connect a vSphere distributed switch to physical NICs on associated ESX\ESXi hosts. The number of uplinks on a vSphere distributed switch is the maximum number of allowed physical connections to the vSphere distributed switch per host.

This test auto-discovers the virtual ports of the vSphere Distributed Switch and reports the current state of each virtual port. This test also alerts the administrators if a virtual port is blocked and if the DirectPath I/O is active on a virtual port. By continuously monitoring the virtual ports, administrators can track the traffic through each virtual port and quickly identify the virtual port that is handling the maximum amount of traffic in terms of multicast packets, broadcast packets etc. Administrators can also figure out the virtual port that is dropping the maximum number of packets upon transmission and reception.

Target of the Test: A VMware vCenter server

Agent deploying the test: An internal agent

Output of the test: One set of results for each vSphere Distribued Switch:Distributed Virtual Port Group:Virtual Port of the target VMware vCenter server 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 Creating a Special Role on vCenter and Assigning the Role to a New User topic under the eG Monitoring Capabilities -> Virtualization and Containers -> Virtualization Technologies -> VMware vSphere ESX node sequence in the eG Enterprise documentation portal Monitoring VMware Infrastructures

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 assigning this role to a user on vCenter have been detailed in the Creating a Special Role on vCenter and Assigning the Role to a New User topic under the eG Monitoring Capabilities -> Virtualization and Containers -> Virtualization Technologies -> VMware vSphere ESX node sequence in the eG Enterprise documentation portal Monitoring VMware Infrastructures

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.
Measures reported by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Is blocked

Indicates whether/not this virtual port is blocked.

Number

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Measure value

Numeric Value

Yes

1

No

0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether/not the virtual port is blocked. The graph of this measure however is represented using the numeric equivalents only - 0 or 1.

State

 

Indicates the current state of this virtual port.

Number

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Measure value

Numeric Value

Link Up

1

Link Down

0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current state of the virtual port. The graph of this measure however is represented using the numeric equivalents only - 0 or 1.

The detailed diagnosis of this measure indicates the name of the entity (server/VM/host) to which the port is connected, MAC Address and vLan ID of the port.

Direct path IO

Indicates whether the DirectPath I/O to the virtual machine is active on this virtual port.

Number

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Measure value

Numeric Value

Active

1

Inactive

0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether the DirectPath I/O to the virtual machine is active on the virtual port. The graph of this measure however is represented using the numeric equivalents only - 0 or 1.

Broadcast ingress traffic

Indicates the rate at which data was received as boadcast packets by this virtual port during the last measurement period.

KB/sec

Compare the value of these measures across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port through which maximum amount of data was sent/received as broadcast packets.

 

Broadcast egress traffic

Indicates the rate at which data was sent as broadcast packets through this virtual port during the last measurement period.

KB/sec

Multicast ingress traffic

Indicates the rate at which data was received as multicast packets by this virtual port during the last measurement period.

KB/sec

Compare the value of these measures across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port through which maximum amount of data was sent/received as multicast packets.

 

Multicast egress traffic

Indicates the rate at which data was sent as multicast packets through this virtual port during the last measurement period.

KB/sec

Unicast ingress traffic

Indicates the rate at which data was received as unicast packets by this virtual port during the last measurement period.

KB/sec

Compare the value of these measures across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port through which maximum amount of data was sent/received as unicast packets.

 

Unicast egress traffic

Indicates the rate at which data was sent as unicast packets through this virtual port during the last measurement period.

KB/sec

Broadcast ingress packets

Indicates the rate at which broadcast packets were received by this virtual port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Compare the value of these measures across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port through which maximum number of broadcast packets were sent/received.

 

Broadcast egress packets

Indicates the rate at which broadcast packets were sent through this virtual port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Multicast ingress packets

Indicates the rate at which multicast packets were received by this virtual port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Compare the value of these measures across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port through which maximum number of multicast packets were sent/received.

 

Multicast egress packets

Indicates the rate at which multicast packets were sent through this port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Unicast ingress packets

Indicates the rate at which unicast packets were received by this virtual port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Compare the value of these measures across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port through which maximum number of unicast packets were sent/received.

 

Unicast egress packets

Indicates the rate at which unicast packets were sent through this port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Dropped ingress packets

Indicates the rate at which packets were dropped by this port upon reception during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Ideally, the value of this measure should be zero. Compare the value of this measure across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port that is dropping too many packets upon reception.

Dropped egress packets

Indicates the rate at which packets were dropped by this port upon transmission during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Ideally, the value of this measure should be zero. Compare the value of this measure across the virtual ports to identify the virtual port that is dropping too many packets upon transmission.

Exception ingress packets

Indicates the rate at which packets that were not expected for e.g., invalid ethertype packets were received by this port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec

Exceptions is a catch-all bucket for packets that are not expected. For example, you get a packet with vlan tags outside the allowed range, such as packets with an invalid ethernet header. This is slightly different from drops, which can be caused by shaping or a system temporarily running out memory. You may not see many exception packets under normal circumstances. The only place VMware increments this measure is invalid ether type in the packet.

Exception egress packets

Indicates the rate at which packets that were not expected for e.g., invalid ethertype packets were sent through this port during the last measurement period.

Packets/sec