vCenter Alarms Test

vSphere includes a user-configurable events and alarms subsystem. This subsystem tracks events happening throughout vSphere and stores the data in log files and the vCenter Server database. This subsystem also enables you to specify the conditions under which alarms are triggered. Alarms can change state from mild warnings to more serious alerts as system conditions change, and can trigger automated alarm actions. This functionality is useful when you want to be informed, or take immediate action, when certain events or conditions occur for a specific inventory object, or group of objects.

Alarms are notifications that are activated in response to an event, a set of conditions, or the state of an inventory object. An alarm definition consists of the following elements in the vSphere Client:

Name and description - Provides an identifying label and description.
Targets - Defines the type of object that is monitored.
Alarm Rules - Defines the event, condition, or state that triggers the alarm and defines the notification severity. It also defines operations that occur in response to triggered alarms.
Last modified - The last modified date and time of the defined alarm.

Alarm definitions are associated with the object selected in the inventory. An alarm monitors the type of inventory objects specified in its definition. Alarm actions are operations that occur in response to the trigger. For example, you can have an email notification sent to one or more administrators when an alarm is triggered. Alarms triggered on a selected inventory object are visible in several locations throughout the VMware vSphere Client and the vCenter console.

In a virtual environment, there may be multiple administrators who are assigned different tasks. If an administrator misses to notice an alarm triggered for a selected inventory object and resolve it on time, it may have a huge impact on the performance of the target environment. To enable administrators notice all the alarms triggered in the target environment without a miss, administrators can use the vCenter Alarms test.

This test when executed periodically enables the eG agent to read the alarms triggered and logged in the vCenter alarm console. This test reports the count of alarms that are currently triggered and also the reports the count of informational alarms, critical alarms etc. Administrators can use the detailed diagnostics to identify the exact alarms that were triggered and initiate troubleshooting to resolve the alarms at the earliest.

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 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 configu ration, 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. 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.
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.
Show DD INFO Alarms	By default, this flag is set to No indicating that detailed metrics will not be collected by default for the Info alarms measure reported by this test. If you wish this test to report detailed diagnostics for the Info alarms measure, set this flag to Yes.
Show DD UNKNOWN Alarms	By default, this flag is set to No indicating that detailed metrics will not be collected by default for the Unknown alarms measure reported by this test. If you wish this test to report detailed diagnostics for the Unknown alarms measure, set this flag to Yes.
Show DD WARN Alarms	By default, this flag is set to Yes indicating that detailed metrics will be collected and reported as part of detailed diagnosis for the Warning alarms measure reported by this test. If you do not wish to report detailed diagnostics for the Warning alarms measure, set this flag to No.
Show DD CRITICAL Alarms	By default, this flag is set to Yes indicating that detailed metrics will be collected and reported as part of detailed diagnosis for the Critical alarms measure reported by this test. If you do not wish to report detailed diagnostics for the Critical alarms measure, set this flag to No.
Exclude Messages	By default eG Enterprise captures all the alarm messages that were logged in the vCenter alarm console to display the required metrics. However, if you wish to exclude certain alarm messages from the scope of monitoring, then you can specify a comma-separated list of alarm messages in this text box. For example, your specification can be: alarm message 1, alarm message 2, alarm message 3,... Similarly, you can even exclude a pattern of alarm messages by specifying the patterns against this text box. For example, your specification can be Pattern 1, Pattern 2,...
DD Frequency	Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD frequency.
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
Current Alarms	Indicates the number of alarms that are currently triggered.	Number
Recently triggered alarms	Indicates thenumber of alarms that were triggered during the last measurement period.	Number
Info alarms	Indicates the number of Informational alarms triggered.	Number
Unknown alarms	Indicates the number of Unknown alarms triggered.	Number
Warning alarms	Indicates the number of Warning alarms triggered.	Number
Critical alarms	Indicates the number of Critical alarms triggered.	Number
Recently triggered info alarms	Indicates the number of Informational alarms triggered during the last measurement period.	Number	A high value for this measure indicates serious issues in the target environment which needs to resolved at the earliest.
Recently triggered unknown alarms	Indicates the number of unknown alarms triggered during the last measurement period.	Number
Recently triggered warning alarms	Indicates the number of warning alarms triggered during the last measurement period.	Number
Recently triggered critical alarms	Indicates the number of critical alarms triggered during the last measurement period.	Number