VIM Connections Test

vCloud Director works transparently with VMware vCenter Server to provision and deploy virtual machines on hosts. Each vCloud Director cell can connect to one or more vCenter Server instances to access resources for running workloads. Each attached vCenter Server instance provides resources, such as CPU and memory, which can be leveraged by vCloud Director. If a vCloud Director cell disconnects from vCenter, the cell will no longer be able to access critical resources and will be unable to provision/deploy VMs on-demand to end-users. This is why, administrators demand that they be immediately notified of such disconnects, so that they can initiate investigation, follow-it up with instant remedial action, and thus ensure the uninterrupted delivery of the cloud-hosted services. The VIM Connections test helps administrators achieve this.

The test monitors cell user connections to each vCenter server instance, and promptly brings disconnected instances to light. In addition, the test also reports reconnects and the number of times the VC listener had to be started owing to the disconnects.

Target of the test : A vCloud Director Cell

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the vCloud Director Cell being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is being configured.
Port	Specify the port at which the specified host listens in the Port text box. By default, this is NULL.
JMX Remote Port	Here, specify the port at which the JMX listens for requests from remote hosts. Ensure that you specify the same port that you configured in the vmware-vcd-cell file in the /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/binfolder of the vCloud Director.
JNDIName	The JNDIName is a lookup name for connecting to the JMX connector. By default, this is jmxrmi. If you have registered the JMX connector in the RMI registry using a different lookup name, then you can change this default value to reflect the same.
User, Password, and Confirm Password	By default, JMX requires no authentication or security (SSL). This is why, by default, the User and Password parameters are set to none. If JMX requires authentication only (but no security), then ensure that the User and Password parameters are configured with the credentials of a user with read-write access to JMX. To know how to create this user, refer to Pre-requisites for Monitoring vCloud Director. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Successful connections	Indicates the number of user connections to this vCenter instance that were successful.	Number
Total disconnections	Indicates the number of user connections that were disconnected from this vCenter instance.	Number	Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0.
VC listeners started	Indicates the number of times the VC listener service was started in this vCenter instance.	Number	vCloud Director has a service called VC Listener (inventory service) through which it monitors and aggregates changes of vCenter Server entities. Each VC Listener service is capable of listening for changes from one or more vCenter Server instances. However there is only one VC Listener Service that is listening to a given vCenter Server. Whenever the connection is broken between the vCenter and the vCloud Director cell, you would need to restart the VC Listener service. A high value of this measure may therefore indicate how often the vCenter instance was disconnected.
VIM reconnects through the UI	Indicates the number of times this vCenter was reconnected through the UI to the vCloud Director cell.	Number	Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. Frequently reconnecting the Virtual Center results in the disconnection of the vApp sessions from the vCloud Director cell thus leading to a poor Cloud computing experience for the users.