Administering VMware Agents

When you deploy Foglight for VMware, a set of predefined dashboards enables you to view the performance of your virtual system at a glance. They allow you to ensure consistent application performance by drilling down for details from higher-level components such as clusters, hosts, and virtual machines, to viewing detailed specifics about each component, such as CPU utilization and network I/O.

Ensure your monitored agents are configured for data collection. You do that by navigating to the Administration tab of the VMware Environment dashboard. This tab lists the available agents and shows their status, and provides access to other administrative tasks.

Start by looking at the status of your integrated system by navigating to the VMware VirtualCenters dashboard. This dashboard shows the status of each of the Virtual Centers within the infrastructure and the related elements such as datacenters, clusters, hosts, resource pools, and virtual machines.

From there, navigate to the Monitoring tab of the VMware Environment dashboard. Select a specific object or group of objects, such as monitored clusters, servers, and virtual machines, and look at the detailed metrics about the CPU load, network I/O, total memory, or disk space consumed by that specific component or group of components. Next, review the alarms generated in your environment, and if necessary, configure them to align with your requirements. The Administration tab on the VMware Environment dashboard allows you to perform this task. The VMware Explorer’s Administration tab provides access to common administrative tasks that you can use to manage monitored servers and virtual machines directly from the Foglight for VMware browser interface. For example, use this tab to shut down or reboot monitored servers, create virtual machines, and grant them access to system resources, create virtual machine snapshots or automate system workflows.

This section covers the following key areas:

Exploring administrative tasks

The Administration tab of the VMware Environment dashboard allows you to deploy remote agents, configure rules, and set advanced platform options. This tab consists of the Rule Configuration tab, Advanced Options tab, Black List tab, and the Agents view.

Rule Configuration tab

The Rule Configuration tab allows to create new custom rules. To configure out-of-the-box rules refer to Alarm Templates.

Advanced Options tab

The Advanced Options tab contains links to administrative tasks that you can initiate from this tab:

  • Configure OS Mapping: Associates different versions of an operating system with a common OS name.
  • Review Instances and Limits: View existing VMware object instances.
  • Metrics Collection Management: Configure the metrics collect by agent.

Black List tab

The Black List tab is used to manage blacklists for VMs and ESX Hosts. Entities included in blacklists are not included in the collection of performance metrics.

To manage the VMs and ESX Hosts Black List:

  1. In the navigation panel, click VMware > VMware Environment.
  2. On the VMware Environment dashboard that appears in the display area, click Administration > Black List.
  3. Click Add.
  4. In the Add VMs and ESX Hosts to Black List Dialog, select the VMs and ESX hosts to be added to the black list, and then click Save. The page will be redirected to the Black List table view and show all the VMs and ESX Hosts which are in the black list.
  5. To remove VMs or ESX Hosts from black list, select the VMS and ESX Hosts that need to be removed from the black list, and then click Remove.
  6. In the Confirm Remove Dialog, click Delete to remove the selected objects.

Agents view

The Agents view shows a list of existing agent instances and a set of agent management buttons at the top of the list. The following buttons are available:

  • Add: Starts a workflow for creating new agent instances. For more information, refer to Configuring monitoring agents for data collection.
  • Refresh: Refreshes the list of agent instances and their states.
  • Activate: Activates one or more selected agent instances. Activating an agent instance starts the agent process on the machine on which the agent is installed.
  • Deactivate: Deactivates one or more selected agent instances. Deactivating an agent stops the agent process on the machine on which the agent is installed.
  • Start Data Collection: Starts the data collection for one or more selected agent instances. Starting an agent’s data collection causes the agent to begin monitoring a Virtual Center, and to send the collected metrics back to the Management Server.
  • Stop Data Collection: Stops the data collection for one or more selected agent instances. Stopping the data collection of an agent causes the agent to stop monitoring the Virtual Center.
  • Edit Properties: Starts a workflow for editing the properties of one or more selected agent instances. Each agent comes with a set of properties that it uses to configure its correct running state.
  • Remove: Deletes the selected agent instance.
  • Update Agent: Updates the agent package to the latest version.

To perform an agent management command, select the one or more check boxes in the left-most column and click the appropriate button. For example, to start an agent’s data collection, select the check box in the agent row and click Start Data Collection. The table in the Agents area lists the existing VMware Performance Agent instances.

Accessing the Administration tab

To access the Administration tab:

  1. Log in to the Foglight browser interface.
  2. In the navigation panel, click VMware > VMware Environment.
  3. On the VMware Environment dashboard that appears in the display area, open the Administration tab. The Administration tab appears in the display area.

Configuring monitoring agents for data collection

Foglight for VMware uses the VMware Performance Agent to collect information from monitored environments. Creating a VMware Performance Agent instance creates the agent process on the Agent Manager host. Activating the VMware Performance Agent starts that agent process while starting an agent instance’s data collection enables the agent to start collecting data from the monitored vCenter and to send it to Foglight for VMware.

To add agents and start monitoring, use the Agents view on the Administration tab.

Each VMware Performance Agent monitors a single Virtual Center. When you create a VMware Performance Agent instance and the Agent Setup wizard determines that the Virtual Center was not previously monitored by this Foglight instance, it starts importing historical data into Foglight. This data is not immediately available as it takes some time to collect it. This process can import data collected over 30 days or less, depending on the amount of data available in the Virtual Center. This allows you to explore VMware metrics as soon as the data is imported, instead for waiting for the agent to collect some data from the Virtual Center. The Metric History column in the Agents table indicates the progress of the historical data import. Historical data is intended for charting, trending, and general presentation purposes. It does not cause any alarms to fire.

To import vCenter historical data, the minimum recommended vCenter Statistics Levels must be at least 2 in the samples that are collected for one month for the agent to populate 30 days of historic collections. The following table lists the minimum Statistics Levels for all collection frequencies.

Collection Interval Collection Frequency Statistics Level
1 Day 5 Minutes 1
1 Week 30 Minutes 1
1 Month 2 Hours 2
1 Year 1 Day 1

Before creating your first VMware Performance agent, you must configure a Virtual Center user with sufficient privileges.

To create, activate VMware Performance Agent instances, and start their data collection:

  1. Log in to the Foglight browser interface.

  2. In the navigation panel, click VMware > VMware Environment.

  3. On the VMware Environment dashboard that appears in the display area, open the Administration tab.

  4. Launch the Agent Setup Wizard. In the Agents area, click Add. The Agent Setup Wizard appears with the Select an Agent Host page open.

  5. Select the host machine running the Agent Manager that you want to manage the VMware Performance Agent you are about to create, and click Next. The Agent Setup Wizard refreshes, showing the Select Virtual Center page.

  6. Specify the Virtual Center that you want to monitor.
    a. In the Virtual Center box, type the fully qualified name of the host on which the Virtual Center is running.
    b. In the Port box, type the port number of the host running the Virtual Center that will be used by the VMware Performance Agent to connect to the Virtual Center.
    c. If you want to enable the VMware Performance Agent to collect the Foglight Storage data, select the Enable Storage Collection check box. Foglight Storage can help you optimize the VMware environment by monitoring virtual storage and its underlying physical storage components.
    d. If you want to import historical data, select the Enable Historical Metric Data check box. This data is not immediately available as it takes some time to collect it. This process can import data collected over 30 days or less, depending on the amount of data available in the Virtual Center. Selecting this option allows you to explore VMware metrics as soon as the data is imported, instead for waiting for the agent to collect some data from the Virtual Center.
    e. Click Next. The Agent Setup Wizard refreshes, showing the Credential Verification page.

  7. Specify user credentials the VMware Performance Agent needs to log into tho Virtual Center host. Select one of the following options:

    The Virtual Center user account must have sufficient privileges.

    • Add vCenter(s) to a new credential: Select this option if you want to create a new credential for the selected vCenter. Click Next and continue to Step 8.
    • Add vCenter(s) to an existing credential: Select this option if you want to use an existing credential for the selected vCenter. This option is suitable if an existing credential has the information needed to access the vCenter. Click Next and continue to Step 9.

  8. Creating a new credential only.
    a. Specify the following information:

    • Credential Name: Type a name that uniquely identifies the credential.
    • User: Type the vCenter user name.
    • Password: Type the vCenter password.
    • Confirm Password: Type the vCenter password.

    b. Select a lockbox in which you want to keep the credential. A lockbox can be used to group credentials for access and/or security. In smaller Foglight installations, you can use the default System lockbox.
    c. Click Next. The Summary page appears.
    d. Click Finish. The Agent Setup Wizard closes, and the Agents area refreshes, showing a newly created VMware Performance agent instance.

  9. Using an existing credential only.
    a. Select an existing credential that you want to use to access the vCenter.
    b. Click Next. The Summary page appears.
    c. Click Finish.
    The Agent Setup Wizard closes, and the Agents area refreshes, showing a newly created VMware Performance agent instance.