vSphere Monitoring and Performance 17 APR 2018 VMware vSphere 6.7 VMware ESXi 6.7 vCenter Server 6.
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Contents About vSphere Monitoring and Performance 5 1 Monitoring Inventory Objects with Performance Charts 7 Performance Chart Types Data Counters 8 8 Metric Groups in vSphere Data Collection Intervals Data Collection Levels 10 10 11 View Performance Charts 12 Performance Charts Options Available Under the View Menu Overview Performance Charts 13 14 Working with Advanced and Custom Charts Troubleshoot and Enhance Performance 106 109 2 Monitoring Guest Operating System Performance 116 Enable
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Reset Triggered Event Alarms 144 Preconfigured vSphere Alarms 145 6 Monitoring Solutions with the vCenter Solutions Manager 151 View Solutions and vServices Monitoring Agents 151 152 Monitoring vServices 152 7 Monitoring the Health of Services and Nodes 154 View the Health Status of Services and Nodes 154 8 Performance Monitoring Utilities: resxtop and esxtop 156 Using the esxtop Utility 156 Using the resxtop Utility 157 Using esxtop or resxtop in Interacti
About vSphere Monitoring and Performance VMware provides several tools to help you monitor your virtual environment and to locate the source of potential issues and current problems. Performance charts Allow you to see performance data on a variety of system resources including CPU, Memory, Storage, and so on. Performance monitoring commandline utilities Allow you to access detailed information on system performance through the command line.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Tasks for which the workflow differs significantly between the vSphere Client and the vSphere Web Client have duplicate procedures that provide steps according to the respective client interface. The procedures that relate to the vSphere Web Client, contain vSphere Web Client in the title. Note In vSphere 6.7, most of the vSphere Web Client functionality is implemented in the vSphere Client.
Monitoring Inventory Objects with Performance Charts 1 The vSphere statistics subsystem collects data on the resource usage of inventory objects. Data on a wide range of metrics is collected at frequent intervals, processed, and archived in the vCenter Server database. You can access statistical information through command-line monitoring utilities or by viewing performance charts in the vSphere Web Client.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This chapter includes the following topics: n Performance Chart Types n Data Counters n Metric Groups in vSphere n Data Collection Intervals n Data Collection Levels n View Performance Charts n Performance Charts Options Available Under the View Menu n Overview Performance Charts n Working with Advanced and Custom Charts n Troubleshoot and Enhance Performance Performance Chart Types Performance metrics are displayed in different types of charts, depend
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑2. Data Counter Attributes Attribute Description Unit of Measurement Standard in which the statistic quantity is measured.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Metric Groups in vSphere The performance data collection subsystem for vSphere collects performance data on various inventory items and their devices. Data counters define individual performance metrics. Performance metrics are organized into logical groups based on the object or object device. Statistics for one or more metrics can be displayed in a chart. Table 1‑3.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑4. Collection Intervals Collection Interval/Archive Length Collection Frequency 1 Day 5 Minutes Default Behavior Real-time statistics are rolled up to create one data point every 5 minutes. The result is 12 data points every hour and 288 data points every day. After 30 minutes, the six data points collected are aggregated and rolled up as a data point for the 1-Week time range.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑5. Statistics Levels Level Metrics Level 1 n Cluster Services (VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler) – all metrics Use for long-term performance monitoring when device statistics are not required. Level 1 is the default Collection Level for all Collection Intervals.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Overview charts display multiple data sets in one panel to evaluate different resource statistics, display thumbnail charts for child objects. It also displays charts for a parent and a child object. Advanced charts display more information than overview charts, are configurable, and can be printed or exported. You can export data in the PNG, JPEG, or CSV formats. See View Advanced Performance Charts.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑6. Performance Chart Views by Inventory Object (Continued) Object View List Items Cluster n Home - CPU and memory charts for the cluster. n Resource Pools & Virtual Machines - thumbnail charts for resource pools and virtual machines, and stacked charts for total CPU and memory usage in the cluster. n Hosts - thumbnail charts for each host in the cluster, and stacked charts for total CPU, memory, disk usage, and network usage.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑7. Data Counters Chart Label Usage Description Sum of the average CPU usage values, in Megahertz, of all virtual machines in the cluster. n Total Counter: usagemhz n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: Megahertz (MHz) n Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum) n Collection Level: 1 (4) Total amount of CPU resources available in the cluster. The maximum value is equal to the number of cores multiplied by the frequency of the processors.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑8. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 6 Enable CPU-saving features, such as TCP Segmentation Offload. 7 Replace software I/O with the dedicated hardware, such as iSCSI HBAs or TCP Segmentation Offload NICs. CPU Usage The cluster CPU Usage charts monitor the CPU utilization of the hosts, resource pools, and virtual machines in the cluster. This chart displays the 10 child objects in the cluster with the most CPU usage.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑10. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 6 Enable CPU-saving features, such as TCP Segmentation Offload. 7 Replace software I/O with the dedicated hardware, such as iSCSI HBAs or TCP Segmentation Offload NICs. Disk (KBps) The Disk (KBps) chart displays the disk I/O of the 10 hosts in the cluster with the most disk usage. This chart is located in the Hosts view of the cluster Performance tab. Table 1‑11.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑12. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Increase the virtual machine memory. It allows more operating system caching, which reduces I/O activity. Note: It might require you to increase the host memory. Increasing memory might reduce the need to store data because databases can utilize the system memory to cache data and avoid disk access.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑13. Data Counters Chart Label Description Consumed Amount of host machine memory used by all powered on virtual machines in the cluster. A cluster's consumed memory consists of virtual machine consumed memory and overhead memory. It does not include host-specific overhead memory, such as memory used by the service console or VMkernel.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑14. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 4 If the cluster is not a DRS cluster, enable DRS. To enable DRS, perform the following tasks: 1 Select the cluster, and click the Configure tab. 2 Under Services, click vSphere DRS. 3 click Edit. An Edit Cluster Settings dialog box opens. 4 5 6 Click Turn ON vSphere DRS, and click OK.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑15. Data Counters (Continued) Chart Label Description Consumed Amount of machine memory used on the host. Consumed memory includes virtual machine memory, service console memory, and VMkernel memory.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If the memory usage value is high, and the host has high ballooning or swapping, check the amount of free physical memory on the host. A free memory value of 6% or less indicates that the host cannot handle the demand for memory. It leads to memory reclamation, which might degrade performance. If the host has enough free memory, check the resource shares, reservation, and limit settings of the virtual machines and resource pools on the host.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis Memory usage is not an indicator of performance problems. Memory can be high if a host is swapping or ballooning, which can result in virtual machine guest swapping. In such cases, check for other problems, such as CPU over-commitment or storage latencies. If you have constantly high memory usage in a cluster, resource pool, or vApp, consider taking the following actions. Table 1‑18.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis Network performance depends on the application workload and network configuration. Dropped network packets indicate a bottleneck in the network. To determine whether packets are being dropped, use esxtop or the advanced performance charts to examine the droppedTx and droppedRx network counter values. If packets are being dropped, adjust the virtual machine shares.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Data centers The data center charts contain information about CPU, disk, memory, and storage usage for data centers. The help topic for each chart contains information about the data counters displayed in that chart. The counters available are determined by the collection level set for vCenter Server. CPU (MHz) The CPU (MHz) chart displays CPU usage for the 10 clusters in the data center with the most CPU usage.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑22. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 3 If the cluster is a DRS cluster: n Increase the number of hosts, and migrate one or more virtual machines to the new host. n Check the aggressiveness threshold. If the value is low, increase the threshold. This might help avoid hot spots in the cluster. 4 Migrate one or more virtual machines to a new host. 5 Upgrade the physical CPUs or cores on each host in the cluster if necessary.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑24. Data Counters Chart Label Description Amount of used storage space on the 10 datastores with the most used space. n Counter: used n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: GigaBytes (GB) n Rollup Type: Latest n Collection Level: 1 Chart Analysis The datastore is at full capacity when the used space is equal to the capacity. Allocated space can be larger than datastore capacity, for example, when you have snapshots and thin-provisioned disks.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Datastore Counters Table 1‑25. Data Counters File Type Description Virtual Disks Amount of disk space used by virtual disk files. Virtual disk files store the contents of the virtual machine's hard disk drive. It includes information that you write to a virtual machine's hard disk, such as the operating system, program files, and data files. The files have the extension .vmdk and appear as a physical disk drive to a guest operating system.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis The datastore is at full capacity when the used space is equal to the capacity. Allocated space can be larger than datastore capacity, for example, when you have snapshots and thin-provisioned disks. If possible, you can provision more space to the datastore, or you can add disks to the datastore or use shared datastores. If snapshot files are consuming high datastore space, consider consolidating them to the virtual disk when they are no longer needed.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑26. Data Counters Chart Label Description Allocated Amount of physical space provisioned by an administrator for the datastore. It is the storage size up to which files on the datastore can grow. Allocated space is not always in use. n Used n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Gigabytes (GB) n Rollup Type: Latest n Collection Level: 1 Amount of physical datastore space in use.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance The Space Utilization by File Type chart is located in the Storage view of the datastore Performance tab. The counters can also be displayed for datastore cluster charts. Datastore Counters Table 1‑27. Data Counters File Type Description Virtual Disks Amount of disk space used by virtual disk files. Virtual disk files store the contents of the virtual machine's hard disk drive.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑27. Data Counters (Continued) File Type Description Free Space Amount of disk space not currently in use. Total Space Amount of disk space available to the datastore. It defines the datastore capacity. The chart displays the information for datastores but not for data centers.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Space Utilization by Virtual Machine The Space Utilization by Virtual Machine chart displays the amount of space used by the five virtual machines with the most space used on the datastore or the datastores in the cluster. Note This chart does not show historical statistics. It only shows the most recently available data, which may be up to 30 minutes late, depending on when the last statistics rollup occurred.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑30. Data Counters Chart Label Description Amount of provisioned storage space on the top 10 datastores with the most provisioned space. n Counter: provisioned n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: KiloBytes (KB) n Rollup Type: Latest n Collection Level: 1 Chart Analysis The datastore is at full capacity when the used space is equal to the capacity.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If snapshot files are consuming high datastore space, consider consolidating them to the virtual disk when they are no longer needed. Consolidating the snapshots deletes the redo log files and removes the snapshots from the vSphere Web Client user interface. For information about consolidating the data center, see the vSphere documentation. Storage I/O Control Normalized Latency This chart displays the normalized latency in microseconds on the datastore.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Storage I/O Control Activity This chart displays the percentage of time during which Storage I/O Control actively controlled latency of the datastore. This chart is located in the Performance views of the datastore Performance tabs. The counter can also be displayed for datastore cluster charts. Table 1‑34.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑36. Data Counters Chart Label Description Max Queue Depth per Host Maximum queue depth. Queue depth is the number of commands the SCSI driver queues to the HBA. n Counter: maxQueueDepth n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Number n Rollup Type: Average n Collection Level: 3 Read IOPs per Host This chart displays the per-host disk read rates for a datastore. The chart displays information about the ten hosts with the highest values.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Average Read Latency per Virtual Machine Disk This chart displays the top ten virtual machine disks with the highest average read latency in milliseconds. Data is not displayed when the virtual machine is powered off. This chart is located in the Performance view of the datastore Performance tab. The counter can also be displayed for datastore cluster charts. Table 1‑39.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑41. Data Counters Chart Label Description Read IOPs per Virtual Machine Disk Number of disk read commands completed on each virtual machine disk, per second. Read rate = blocks read per second × block size n Counter: numberReadAveraged n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: Number n Rollup Type: Average n Collection Level: 3 Write IOPs Per Virtual Machine Disk This chart displays the 10 virtual machines with the highest number of write operations.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Hosts The hosts charts contain information about CPU, disk, memory, network, and storage usage for hosts. The help topic for each chart contains information about the data counters displayed in that chart. The counters available are determined by the collection level set for vCenter Server. CPU (%) The CPU (%) chart displays CPU usage for the host. This chart is located in the Home view of the Host Performance tab. Table 1‑44.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑45. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 5 Upgrade the physical CPUs or cores on the host if necessary. 6 Use the newest version of hypervisor software, and enable CPU-saving features such as TCP Segmentation Offload, large memory pages, and jumbo frames. CPU (MHz) The CPU (MHz) chart displays CPU usage for the host. This chart is located in the Home view of the Host Performance tab. Table 1‑46.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑47. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 5 Upgrade the physical CPUs or cores on the host if necessary. 6 Use the newest version of hypervisor software, and enable CPU-saving features such as TCP Segmentation Offload, large memory pages, and jumbo frames. CPU Usage The CPU Usage chart displays CPU usage of the 10 virtual machines on the host with the most CPU usage.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑49. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 6 Increase the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine. This decreases disk and or network activity for applications that cache. This might lower disk I/O and reduce the need for the host to virtualize the hardware. Virtual machines with smaller resource allocations generally accumulate more CPU ready time.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n The deviceLatency data counter measures the average amount of time, in milliseconds, to complete a SCSI command from the physical device. Depending on your hardware, a number greater than 15 ms indicates probable problems with the storage array. Move the active VMDK to a volume with more spindles or add disks to the LUN. n The queueLatency data counter measures the average amount of time taken per SCSI command in the VMkernel queue. This value must always be zero.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑52. Data Counters Chart Label Description Read Number of disk read commands completed on each disk on the host, per second. The aggregate number of all disk read commands is also displayed in the chart. Read rate = blocksRead per second × blockSize Write n Counter: read n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: Kilobytes per second (KBps) n Rollup Type: Average n Collection Level: 3 Number of disk write commands completed on each disk on the host, per second.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑53. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Increase the virtual machine memory. It allows more operating system caching, which reduces I/O activity. Note: It might require you to increase the host memory. Increasing memory might reduce the need to store data because databases can utilize the system memory to cache data and avoid disk access.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑54. Data Counters Chart Label Description Read Requests Number of disk read commands completed on each LUN on the host. The aggregate number of all disk read commands is also displayed in the chart. n Write Requests Counter: numberRead n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Number n Rollup Type: Summation n Collection Level: 3 Number of disk write commands completed on each LUN on the host.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑55. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Increase the virtual machine memory. It allows more operating system caching, which reduces I/O activity. Note: It might require you to increase the host memory. Increasing memory might reduce the need to store data because databases can utilize the system memory to cache data and avoid disk access.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis Use the disk charts to monitor average disk loads and to determine trends in disk usage. For example, you might notice a performance degradation with applications that frequently read from and write to the hard disk. If you see a spike in the number of disk read or write requests, check whether any such applications were running then.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑57. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 8 For resource-intensive virtual machines, separate the virtual machine's physical disk drive from the drive with the system page file. It alleviates disk spindle contention during periods of high use. 9 On systems with sizable RAM, disable memory trimming by adding the line MemTrimRate=0 to the virtual machine's VMX file.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n The deviceLatency data counter measures the average amount of time, in milliseconds, to complete a SCSI command from the physical device. Depending on your hardware, a number greater than 15 ms indicates probable problems with the storage array. Move the active VMDK to a volume with more spindles or add disks to the LUN. n The queueLatency data counter measures the average amount of time taken per SCSI command in the VMkernel queue. This value must always be zero.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This chart is located in the Virtual Machines view of the host Performance tab. Table 1‑60. Data Counters Chart Label Description virtual_machine Sum of the data read from the virtual machine. n Counter: usage n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: KiloBytes per second (KBps) n Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum) n Collection Level: 1 (4) Chart Analysis Use the disk charts to monitor average disk loads and to determine trends in disk usage.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑61. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 3 Disable antivirus on-demand scans on the VMDK and VMEM files. 4 Use the vendor's array tools to determine the array performance statistics. When too many servers simultaneously access common elements on an array, the disks might have trouble keeping up. To increase throughput, consider array-side improvements.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If the host has enough free memory, check the resource shares, reservation, and limit settings of the virtual machines and resource pools on the host. Verify that the host settings are adequate and not lower than those set for the virtual machines. If the host has little free memory available, or if you notice a degradation in performance, consider taking the following actions. Table 1‑62.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Transient high-usage values usually do not cause performance degradation. For example, memory usage can be high when several virtual machines are started at the same time or when a spike occurs in virtual machine workload. However, a consistently high memory usage value (94% or greater) indicates that the host is probably lacking the memory required to meet the demand.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑65. Data Counters Chart Label Description swapinRate Average rate at which memory is swapped in from the host swap file. n swapoutRate Counter: swapinRate n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: MegaBytes per second (MBps) n Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum) n Collection Level: 1 (4) Average rate at which memory is swapped out to the host swap file.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑66. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 5 Migrate one or more virtual machines to a host in a DRS cluster. 6 Add physical memory to the host. Memory (MB) The Memory (MB) chart displays memory data counters for hosts. This chart is located in the Home view of the host Performance tab. Note Guest physical memory refers to the virtual hardware memory presented to a virtual machine for its guest operating system.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑67. Data Counters (Continued) Chart Label Description Consumed Amount of machine memory used on the host. Consumed memory includes virtual machine memory, service console memory, and VMkernel memory.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Transient high-usage values usually do not cause performance degradation. For example, memory usage can be high when several virtual machines are started at the same time or when a spike occurs in virtual machine workload. However, a consistently high memory usage value (94% or greater) indicates that the host is probably lacking the memory required to meet the demand.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑69. Data Counters Chart Label Description Usage Amount of guest physical memory currently in use on the virtual machine. n Counter: usage n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Percentage (%) n Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum) n Collection Level: 1 (4) Chart Analysis A virtual machine's memory size must be slightly larger than the average guest memory usage. This enables the host to accommodate workload spikes without swapping memory among guests.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Network (Mbps) The Network (Mbps) chart displays network usage for the host. This chart is located in the Home view of the Host Performance tab. Table 1‑71. Host Counters Chart Label Description Usage Average rate at which data is transmitted and received across all NIC instances connected to the host.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑72. Networking Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 4 Assign each physical NIC to a port group and a vSwitch. 5 Use separate physical NICs to handle the different traffic streams, such as network packets generated by virtual machines, iSCSI protocols, vMotion tasks. 6 Ensure that the physical NIC capacity is large enough to handle the network traffic on that vSwitch.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis Network performance depends on the application workload and network configuration. Dropped network packets indicate a bottleneck in the network. To determine whether packets are being dropped, use esxtop or the advanced performance charts to examine the droppedTx and droppedRx network counter values. If packets are being dropped, adjust the virtual machine shares.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Network Packets (Number) The Network Packets chart displays the network bandwidth on a host. This chart is located in the Home view of the Host Performance tab. Table 1‑75. Data Counters Chart Label Description Packets Received Number of network packets received across the top ten physical NIC instances on the host. The chart also displays the aggregated value for all NICs.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑76. Networking Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. 2 If possible, use vmxnet3 NIC drivers, which are available with VMware Tools. They are optimized for high performance. 3 If virtual machines running on the same host communicate with each other, connect them to the same vSwitch to avoid transferring packets over the physical network.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If packets are being dropped, adjust the virtual machine shares. If packets are not being dropped, check the size of the network packets and the data receive and transfer rates. In general, the larger the network packets, the faster the network speed. When the packet size is large, fewer packets are transferred, which reduces the amount of CPU required to process the data.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance CPU (MHz) The CPU (MHz) chart displays CPU usage in the resource pool or vApp. This chart is located in the Home view of the Resource Pool or vApp Performance tab. Counters Table 1‑79. Data Counters Chart Label Description Usage CPU usage is the sum of the average CPU usage values of the virtual machines in the resource pool or vApp.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑81. Data Counters Chart Label Description virtual_machine Amount of CPU actively used by virtual machines. n Counter: usagemhz n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: Megahertz (MHz) n Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum) n Collection Level: 1 (4) Chart Analysis A short spike in CPU usage or CPU ready indicates that you are making the best use of the virtual machine resources.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑83. Data Counters Chart Label Description resource_pool or vApp Sum of the active memory used by all virtual machines in the resource pool or vApp. Active memory is determined by the VMkernel and includes overhead memory.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This chart is located in the Resource Pools & Virtual Machines view of the resource pool or vApp Performance tab. For resource pools and virtual machines in a resource pool or vApp, this chart is located in the Resource Pools & Virtual Machines view of the resource pool or vApp Performance tab. Table 1‑85. Data Counters Chart Label Description virtual_machine Amount of host memory used by the virtual machine for its guest operating system's physical memory.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑86. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 3 Reduce the memory space on the virtual machine, and correct the cache size if it is too large. This frees up memory for other virtual machines. 4 If the memory reservation of the virtual machine is set to a value much higher than its active memory, decrease the reservation setting so that the VMkernel can reclaim the idle memory for other virtual machines on the host.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑87. Data Counters (Continued) Chart Label Description Consumed Amount of the physical memory consumed by the virtual machine for the guest memory. Consumed memory does not include the overhead memory. It includes the shared memory and memory that might be reserved, but not actually used.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If little free memory is available, or if you notice degradation in performance, consider taking the following actions. Table 1‑88. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. The balloon driver is installed with VMware Tools and is critical to performance. 2 Verify that the balloon driver is enabled. The VMkernel regularly reclaims unused virtual machine memory by ballooning and swapping.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis A short spike in CPU usage indicates that you are making the best use of the resources available. However, if the value is constantly high, the CPU demanded is likely greater than the CPU capacity available. A high CPU usage value can lead to increased ready time and processor queuing of the virtual machines in the resource pool.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑92. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 3 Compare the CPU usage value of a virtual machine with the CPU usage of other virtual machines on the host or in the resource pool. The stacked line chart on the host's Virtual Machine view shows the CPU usage for virtual machines on the host. 4 Determine whether the high ready time for the virtual machine resulted from its CPU usage time reaching the CPU limit setting.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑94. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. 2 Verify that the balloon driver is enabled. The balloon driver is installed with VMware Tools and is critical to performance. The VMkernel regularly reclaims unused virtual machine memory by ballooning and swapping. Generally, it does not impact virtual machine performance.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis A virtual machine's memory size must be slightly larger than the average guest memory usage. This enables the host to accommodate workload spikes without swapping memory among guests. Increasing the virtual machine memory size results in more overhead memory usage. If sufficient swap space is available, a high balloon value does not cause performance problems.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑97. Data Counters Chart Label Description Usage Amount of actively used virtual CPU as a percentage of total available CPU. CPU usage is the average CPU utilization over all available virtual CPUs in the virtual machine. For example, if a virtual machine with one virtual CPU is running on a host that has four physical CPUs and the CPU usage is 100%, the virtual machine is using one physical CPU completely.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑98. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 7 Reduce the number of virtual CPUs on a virtual machine to only the number required to execute the workload. For example, a single-threaded application on a four-way virtual machine only benefits from a single vCPU. But the hypervisor's maintenance of the three idle vCPUs takes CPU cycles that could be used for other work. 8 If the host is not already in a DRS cluster, add it to one.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑100. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 5 Increase the CPU shares to give the virtual machine more opportunities to run. The total ready time on the host might remain at the same level if the host system is constrained by CPU. If the host ready time doesn't decrease, set the CPU reservations for high-priority virtual machines to guarantee that they receive the required CPU cycles.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n The deviceLatency data counter measures the average amount of time, in milliseconds, to complete a SCSI command from the physical device. Depending on your hardware, a number greater than 15 ms indicates probable problems with the storage array. Move the active VMDK to a volume with more spindles or add disks to the LUN. n The queueLatency data counter measures the average amount of time taken per SCSI command in the VMkernel queue. This value must always be zero.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This chart is located in the Home view of the virtual machine Performance tab. It is available only at collection levels 3 and 4. Table 1‑103. Data Counters Chart Label Description Read Number of disk read commands completed on each virtual disk on the virtual machine, per second. The aggregate number of all disk read commands per second is also displayed in the chart.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If the disk latency values are high, or if you notice other problems with disk I/O performance, consider taking the following actions. Table 1‑104. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Increase the virtual machine memory. It allows more operating system caching, which reduces I/O activity. Note: It might require you to increase the host memory.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑105. Data Counters Chart Label Description Read Requests Number of disk read commands completed on each virtual disk on the virtual machine. The aggregate number of all disk read commands is also displayed in the chart. n Write Requests Counter: numberRead n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Number n Rollup Type: Summation n Collection Level: 3 Number of disk write commands completed on each virtual disk on the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑106. Disk I/O Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Increase the virtual machine memory. It allows more operating system caching, which reduces I/O activity. Note: It might require you to increase the host memory. Increasing memory might reduce the need to store data because databases can utilize the system memory to cache data and avoid disk access.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑107. Data Counters Chart Label Description Read Requests Number of virtual disk read commands completed on each virtual disk on the virtual machine. The aggregate number of all virtual disk read commands is also displayed in the chart. n Write Requests Counter: numberRead n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Number n Rollup Type: Average n Collection Level: 2 Number of virtual disk write commands completed on each virtual disk on the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Memory (%) The Memory (%) chart monitors virtual machine memory usage. This chart is located in the Home view of the virtual machine Performance tab. Virtual Machine Counters Note Guest physical memory refers to the virtual hardware memory presented to a virtual machine for its guest operating system. Table 1‑109. Data Counters Chart Label Description Usage Amount of guest physical memory currently in use on the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑110. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. The balloon driver is installed with VMware Tools and is critical to performance. 2 Verify that the balloon driver is enabled. The VMkernel regularly reclaims unused virtual machine memory by ballooning and swapping. Generally, this does not impact virtual machine performance.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If little free memory is available, or if you notice degradation in performance, consider taking the following actions. Table 1‑112. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. The balloon driver is installed with VMware Tools and is critical to performance. 2 Verify that the balloon driver is enabled. The VMkernel regularly reclaims unused virtual machine memory by ballooning and swapping.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If a virtual machine has high ballooning or swapping, check the amount of free physical memory on the host. The host might require more memory resources. If it does not, check the resource shares, reservation, and limit of the virtual machines and resource pools on the host. Verify that the host settings are adequate and not lower than those set for the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑115. Data Counters Chart Label Description Active Amount of guest physical memory in use by the virtual machine. Active memory is estimated by VMkernel statistical sampling and represents the actual amount of memory the virtual machine needs. The value is based on the current workload of the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑115. Data Counters (Continued) Chart Label Description Shared Amount of guest physical memory available for sharing. Memory sharing occurs through transparent page sharing. Swapped n Counter: shared n Stats Type: Absolute n Unit: Megabytes (MB) n Rollup Type: Average (Minimum/Maximum) n Collection Level: 2 (4) The amount of guest physical memory swapped out to the disk by the VMkernel.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑116. Memory Performance Enhancement Advice # Resolution 1 Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. The balloon driver is installed with VMware Tools and is critical to performance. 2 Verify that the balloon driver is enabled. The VMkernel regularly reclaims unused virtual machine memory by ballooning and swapping. Generally, this does not impact virtual machine performance.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If packets are not being dropped and the data receive rate is slow, the host is probably lacking the CPU resources required to handle the load. Check the number of virtual machines assigned to each physical NIC. If necessary, perform load balancing by moving virtual machines to different vSwitches or by adding more NICs to the host. You can also move virtual machines to another host or increase the host CPU or virtual machine CPU.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑119. Data Counters Chart Label Description Data Receive Rate Rate at which data is received across each virtual NIC instance on the virtual machine. n Data Transmit Rate Counter: received n Stats Type: Rate n Unit: Megabits per second (Mbps) n Rollup Type: Average n Collection Level: 2 (4) Rate at which data is transmitted across each virtual NIC instance on the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑120. Networking Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 4 Assign each physical NIC to a port group and a vSwitch. 5 Use separate physical NICs to handle the different traffic streams, such as network packets generated by virtual machines, iSCSI protocols, vMotion tasks. 6 Ensure that the physical NIC capacity is large enough to handle the network traffic on that vSwitch.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Chart Analysis Network performance depends on the application workload and network configuration. Dropped network packets indicate a bottleneck in the network. To determine whether packets are being dropped, use esxtop or the advanced performance charts to examine the droppedTx and droppedRx network counter values. If packets are being dropped, adjust the virtual machine shares.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Space in GB The Space in GB chart displays space utilization data counters for virtual machines. This chart is located in the Storage view of the virtual machine Performance tab. Table 1‑123. Data Counters Chart Label Description Allocated Total amount of logical datastore space provisioned by an administrator for the virtual machine. It is the storage size up to which the virtual machine files on datastores can grow.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Space Utilization by Datastores The Space Utilization by Datastores chart displays the amount of space used by a virtual machine on different datastores in the data center. Note This chart does not show historical statistics. It only shows the most recently available data, which may be up to 30 minutes late, depending on when the last statistics rollup occurred. In addition, statistics are not collected across all datastores at one time. They are collected asynchronously.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Datastore counters Table 1‑125. Data Counters File Type Description Virtual Disks Amount of disk space used by virtual disk files. Virtual disk files store the contents of the virtual machine's hard disk drive, including information that you write to a virtual machine's hard disk - the operating system, program files, and data files. The files have the extension .vmdk and appear as a physical disk drive to a guest operating system.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If snapshot files are consuming high datastore space, consider consolidating them to the virtual disk when they are no longer needed. Consolidating the snapshots deletes the redo log files and removes the snapshots from the vSphere Web Client user interface. For information about consolidating the data center, see the vSphere documentation.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑127. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 4 Turn off power management (also known as power-capping) in the BIOS. If power management is enabled, the secondary host might enter lower performance, power-saving modes. Such modes can leave the secondary virtual machine with insufficient CPU resources, potentially making it impossible for the secondary to complete all tasks completed on a primary in a timely fashion.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑129. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 4 Turn off power management (also known as power-capping) in the BIOS. If power management is enabled, the secondary host might enter lower performance, power-saving modes. Such modes can leave the secondary virtual machine with insufficient CPU resources, potentially making it impossible for the secondary to complete all tasks completed on a primary in a timely fashion.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 1‑131. CPU Performance Enhancement Advice (Continued) # Resolution 4 Turn off power management (also known as power-capping) in the BIOS. If power management is enabled, the secondary host might enter lower performance, power-saving modes. Such modes can leave the secondary virtual machine with insufficient CPU resources, potentially making it impossible for the secondary to complete all tasks completed on a primary in a timely fashion.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If the host has enough free memory, check the resource shares, reservation, and limit of the virtual machines and resource pools on the host. Verify that the host settings are adequate and not lower than those set for the virtual machine. If little free memory is available, or if you notice degradation in performance, consider taking the following actions. Table 1‑133.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If a virtual machine has high ballooning or swapping, check the amount of free physical memory on the host. The host might require more memory resources. If it does not, check the resource shares, reservation, and limit of the virtual machines and resource pools on the host. Verify that the host settings are adequate and not lower than those set for the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 4 (Optional) To view a different chart, select an option from the View list. The amount of historical data displayed in a chart depends on the collection interval and statistics level set for vCenter Server. Change Advanced Chart Settings You can customize a performance chart by specifying the objects to monitor, the counters to include, the time range, and chart type. You can customize preconfigured chart views and create chart views.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Create a Custom Advanced Chart You can create your own charts by saving customized chart settings. New charts are added to the View menu and will appear there only when charts for the selected object are being displayed. Procedure 1 Select an inventory object in the vSphere Web Client. 2 Click the Monitor tab, click Performance, and navigate to the Chart Options dialog of a chart. 3 Customize chart settings. 4 Click Save Options As....
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 5 Select a file type. Option Description To PNG Exports a bitmap image in the PNG format. To JPEG Exports a bitmap image in the JPEG format. To CSV Exports plain-text data in the CSV format. 6 Enter a name and location for the file. 7 Click Save. The file is saved to the location and format you specified. Troubleshoot and Enhance Performance This section presents tips for identifying and solving performance problems.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n Determine whether the high ready time for the virtual machine resulted from its CPU usage time reaching the CPU limit setting. If so, increase the CPU limit on the virtual machine. n Increase the CPU shares to give the virtual machine more opportunities to run. The total ready time on the host might remain at the same level if the host system is constrained by CPU.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Solution n Verify that VMware Tools is installed on each virtual machine. The balloon driver is installed with VMware Tools and is critical to performance. n Verify that the balloon driver is enabled. The VMkernel regularly reclaims unused virtual machine memory by ballooning and swapping. Generally, this does not impact virtual machine performance. n Reduce the memory space on the virtual machine, and correct the cache size if it is too large.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n The value for the deviceLatency data counter is greater than 15 ms indicates that there are probably problems with the storage array. n The queueLatency data counter measures above zero. n Spikes in latency. n Unusual increases in read/write requests. Cause n The virtual machines on the host are trying to send more throughput to the storage system than the configuration supports. n The storage array probably is experiencing internal problems.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n On systems with sizable RAM, disable memory trimming by adding the line MemTrimRate=0 to the virtual machine's VMX file. n If the combined disk I/O is higher than a single HBA capacity, use multipathing or multiple links. n For ESXi hosts, create virtual disks as preallocated. When you create a virtual disk for a guest operating system, select Allocate all disk space now.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n If virtual machines running on the same host communicate with each other, connect them to the same virtual switch to avoid the cost of transferring packets over the physical network. n Assign each physical NIC to a port group and a virtual switch. n Use separate physical NICs to handle the different traffic streams, such as network packets generated by virtual machines, iSCSI protocols, vMotion tasks.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n Real-time statistics are collected on hosts and aggregated every 5 minutes. After six data points are collected for approximately 30 minutes, they are rolled up to the vCenter Server database to create the 1-Day statistic. 1-Day statistics might not be available for 30 minutes after the current time, depending on when the sample period began. n The 1-Day statistics are rolled up to create one data point every 30 minutes.
Monitoring Guest Operating System Performance 2 This section describes how to install and view VMware-specific performance data for virtual machines that run Microsoft Windows operating systems. VMware provides performance counters that enable you to view data on many aspects of guest operating system performance for the Microsoft Windows Perfmon utility.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure 1 Open a console to the virtual machine and log in. 2 Select Start > Run. 3 Enter Perfmon and press Enter. 4 In the Performance dialog box, click Add . 5 In the Add Counters dialog box, select Use local computer counters. 6 Select a virtual machine performance object. Virtual machine performance object names begin with VM. 7 Select the counters that you want to display for that object.
Monitoring Host Health Status 3 You can use the vSphere Web Client or the vSphere Client to monitor the state of host hardware components, such as CPU processors, memory, fans, and other components.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This chapter includes the following topics: n Monitor Health Status in the vSphere Client n Monitor Hardware Health Status n Reset Health Status Sensors in the vSphere Client n Reset Health Status Sensors Monitor Health Status in the vSphere Client You can monitor the health status of host hardware in the vSphere Client Procedure 1 Select a host in the vSphere Client 2 Click the Monitor tab, and click Hardware Health 3 Select the type of information to view.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Reset Health Status Sensors in the vSphere Client Some host hardware sensors display data that is cumulative over time. You can reset these sensors to clear the data in them and begin collecting new data. If you need to preserve sensor data for troubleshooting or other purposes, take a screenshot, export the data, or download a support bundle before resetting sensors. Prerequisites Verify that the vCenter Hardware Status plug-in is enabled.
Monitoring vSphere Health 4 You can check the health of vSphere Host and vCenter Server. Check vSphere Health in vSphere Client You can use the vSphere Online health checks to monitor the health of the system. You can run health checks and send the data to VMware for advanced analysis. Prerequisites n You must participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program to use online health checks. n To perform the online health checks, vCenter Server must be able to communicate over the Internet.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 5 To run the health checks and update the results immediately, click the Retest button. You can click the Ask VMware button to open a knowledge base article that describes the health check and provides information about how to resolve the issue. VMware, Inc.
Monitoring Events, Alarms, and Automated Actions 5 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.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n 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. n Last modified - The last modified date and time of the defined alarm. An alarm definition consists of the following elements in the vSphere Web Client: n Name and description - Provides an identifying label and description.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This chapter includes the following topics: n View Events n View System Logs n Export Events Data n Streaming Events to a Remote Syslog Server n Retention of Events in the vCenter Server Database n View Triggered Alarms and Alarm Definitions n Live Refresh of Recent Tasks and Alarms n Set an Alarm in the vSphere Web Client n Set an Alarm in the vSphere Client n Acknowledge Triggered Alarms n Reset Triggered Event Alarms n Preconfigured vSphere Alarm
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 2 Click Monitor, and click System Logs. 3 From the drop-down menu, select the log. 4 (Optional) Click Show All Lines or Show Next 2000 Lines to see additional log entries. Export Events Data You can export all or part of the events data stored in the vCenter Server database. Prerequisites Required Role: Read-only Procedure 1 Select an inventory object in the vSphere Web Client. 2 Click the Monitor tab, and click Events. 3 Click the Export icon ( ).
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Item Description user Displays the name of the user who generated the event. target Displays the object the event refers to. chainId Displays information about the parent or the group ID. desc Displays the description of the event.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 4 In the Remote Syslog Host text box, enter the FQDN or IP address of the machine on which you want to export the log files. 5 In the Remote Syslog Port text box, enter the port number to use for communication with the machine on which you want to export the log files. 6 From the Remote Syslog Protocol drop-down menu, select the protocol to use.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If you are upgrading or migrating from vCenter Server 6.5 or earlier, and you had the event cleanup option enabled, your setting to retain events is preserved after the upgrade or migration to vCenter Server Appliance 6.5. After the retention period ends, the events are deleted from the database. However, there might be latency in the deletion of the events that are older than the configured retention setting.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance View Triggered Alarms and Alarm Definitions Triggered alarms are visible in several locations throughout the vSphere Web Client. Procedure n To view all triggered alarms, click All in the Alarms sidebar panel. Note The list of alarms in the sidebar refreshes every 120 seconds. For information about changing the default refresh period, see the VMware knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2020290.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 3 Log out from the vSphere Web Client. 4 Use https://hostname:9443/vsphere-client/ to log in to the vSphere Web Client. hostname stands for the name or the IP address of the host where vCenter Server system runs. If you log in to the vSphere Web Client by using the https://hostname/vsphere-client/, you will see no recent tasks or alarms under the respective Recent Tasks or Alarms portlets in the vSphere Web Client.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n An event that occurs on the object. Depending on the type of activity that you choose to monitor, the options on the Triggers page that follow the General page in the alarm definitions wizard, change. After defining the triggers, define the actions that the trigger causes. Prerequisites Log in to the vSphere Web Client. Required Privilege: Alarms.Create alarm or Alarms.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure n Create or edit alarms in the Monitor tab. a Select an inventory object, click the Monitor tab, and click Issues. b Click Alarm Definitions. c Right-click the list of alarms, and select to add or edit an alarm. You cannot edit vCenter Server predefined alarms. n Add an alarm to an object in the object navigator. a Right-click an inventory object and select Alarms > New Alarm Definition.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance For information about defining triggers for an event-based alarm, see Specify How an Event-Based Alarm is Triggered. You can add multiple triggers and choose whether to trigger the alarm when one or all of them become active. Prerequisites n Required Privilege: Alarms.Create alarm or Alarms.Modify alarm Procedure 1 Select the trigger that you want to change, or click the Add icon to add a trigger.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 3 Click in the Status column, and select an option from the drop-down menu. 4 (Optional) Configure additional conditions to be met before the alarm triggers. a Click the Add icon to add an argument. b Click in the Argument column, and select an option from the drop-down menu. c Click in the Operator column, and select an option from the drop-down menu. d Click in the Value column, and enter a value into the text box. You can add more than one argument.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 3 Click in the Configuration column, and enter configuration information for actions that require additional information: Option Action Send a notification email Type email addresses, separated by a comma. Migrate VM Complete the virtual machine migration wizard. Run a command Take one of the following actions and press Enter: n If the command is a .exe file, enter the full path name of the command and include any parameters. For example, to run the cmd.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance vCenter Server Email Agent Notifications The following tables describe the information that is included in Alarm-based and Event-based email notifications. The first table described the information included in all email notifications. The second table describes additional information that is included in Event-based notifications. Table 5‑1. Basic SNMP Email Notification Details Email Entry Description Target Object for which the alarm was triggered.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 3 (Optional) Configure alarm transitions and frequency. 4 Click Finish to save the alarm settings. SNMP Trap Notifications The following table describes the information that is included in vCenter Server and ESXi trap notifications. Table 5‑3. SNMP Trap Notification Details Trap Entry Description Type The state vCenter Server is monitoring for the alarm.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure 1 On the Actions tab of the alarm definitions wizard, click Add to add an action. 2 In the Actions column, select Run a command from the drop-down menu. 3 In the Configuration column, type script or command information: For this type of command... EXE executable files Enter this... Full pathname of the command. For example, to run the cmd.exe command in the C:\tools directory, type: c:\tools\cmd.exe.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑4. Alarm Environment Variables (Continued) Variable Name Variable Description Supported Alarm Type VMWARE_ALARM_OLDSTATUS The old status of the alarm. Condition, State, Event VMWARE_ALARM_NEWSTATUS The new status of the alarm. Condition, State, Event VMWARE_ALARM_TRIGGERINGSUMMARY A multiline summary of the alarm. Condition, State, Event VMWARE_ALARM_DECLARINGSUMMARY A single-line declaration of the alarm expression.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑5. Command-Line Parameters for Alarm Action Scripts Variable Description {eventDescription} The text of the alarmStatusChange event. The {eventDescription} variable is supported only for Condition and State alarms. {targetName} The name of the entity on which the alarm is triggered. {alarmName} The name of the alarm that is triggered. {triggeringSummary} A summary of the alarm trigger values. {declaringSummary} A summary of the alarm declaration values.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Prerequisites n Required Privilege: Alarms.Create alarm or Alarms.Modify alarm n In the Alarms Definitions page, click Add. See Create an Alarm Procedure 1 Type a name and description. 2 Select the type of inventory object that this alarm monitors from the Target type drop-down menu Depending on the type of target that you choose to monitor, the summary that follows the Target, change. 3 Click Next.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 6 Send email notifications a To send email notifications when alarms are triggered, enable Send email notifications. b In the Email to, enter recipient addresses. Use commas to separate multiple addresses. 7 To send traps when alarms are triggered on a vCenter Server instance, enable Send SNMP traps. 8 Run scripts a To run scripts when alarms are triggered, enable Run script.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance After setting the alarm rule, review the alarm before enabling the alarm. Prerequisites Required Privilege: Alarms.Create alarm or Alarms.Modify alarm Procedure 1 Review the Alarm Name, Description, Targets, and Alarm Rule. 2 Select Enable this alarm to enable the alarm. The alarm is enabled. Acknowledge Triggered Alarms After you acknowledge an alarm in the vSphere Client, its alarm actions are discontinued. Alarms are not cleared, or reset when acknowledged.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure n Right-click an alarm in the Alarms sidebar pane and select Reset to green. n Reset triggered alarms in the Monitor tab. a Select an inventory object. b Click the Monitor tab. c Click Issues and Alarms, and click Triggered Alarms. d Select the alarms you want to reset. Use Shift+left-click or Ctrl+left-click to select multiple alarms is supported in the vSphere Web Client. e Right-click an alarm and select Reset to Green.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑6. Default vSphere Alarms (Continued) Alarm Name Description License capacity monitoring Monitors whether a license capacity is exceeded. The host license edition is not compatible with the vCenter Server license edition Monitors the compatibility of the vCenter Server and host license editions. Host flash capacity exceeds the licensed limit for vSAN Monitors whether the flash disk capacity on the host exceeds the limit of the vSAN license.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑6. Default vSphere Alarms (Continued) Alarm Name Description VASA provider disconnected Monitors the changes in the connection state of VASA providers. VASA Provider certificate expiration alarm Monitors whether VASA provider certificates are getting close to their expiry date. VM storage compliance alarm Monitors the virtual disk compliance with the object-based storage.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑6. Default vSphere Alarms (Continued) Alarm Name Description vSphere Distributed Switch MTU supported status Monitors changes in vSphere Distributed Switch MTU supported status. vSphere Distributed Switch teaming matched status Monitors changes in vSphere Distributed Switch teaming matched status. Virtual Machine network adapter reservation status Monitors changes in the reservation status of a virtual machine network adapter.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑6. Default vSphere Alarms (Continued) Alarm Name Description Content Library Service Health Alarm Monitors the health status of the VMware Content Library Service. Transfer Service Health Alarm Monitors the health status of the VMware Transfer Service. VMware vSphere ESXi Dump Collector Health Alarm Monitors the health status of the VMware vSphere ESXi Dump Collector Service.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 5‑7. Deprecated vSphere Alarms Alarm name Description Cannot connect to network Monitors the network connectivity on a virtual switch. IPv6 TSO not supported Monitors whether the IPv6 TSO packets sent by the guest operating system of a virtual machine are dropped. SRM Consistency Group Violation Datastore cluster has datastores that belong to different SRM consistency groups.
Monitoring Solutions with the vCenter Solutions Manager 6 In the vSphere Web Client, you can view an inventory of installed solutions, view detailed information about the solutions, and monitor the solution health status. A solution is an extension of vCenter Server that adds new functions to a vCenter Server instance. VMware products that integrate with vCenter Server are also considered solutions.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure 1 Navigate to the vCenter Server system in the object navigator. 2 Double-click the vCenter Server object. 3 Click Extensions. 4 Select a solution. The Summary tab displays more information about the solution. 5 To view vService provider information, click Monitor, and click vServices. Monitoring Agents The vCenter Solutions Manager displays the vSphere ESX Agent Manager agents that you use to deploy and manage related agents on ESX/ESXi hosts.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance A vService is a type of service for a virtual machine and a vApp provided by a vCenter extension. Virtual machines and vApps can have dependencies on vServices. Each dependency is associated with a vService type. The vService type must be bound to a particular vCenter extension that implements that vService type. This vService type is similar to a virtual hardware device.
7 Monitoring the Health of Services and Nodes You can monitor the health status of services and nodes to determine whether problems exist in your environment. The vSphere Web Client provides an overview of all services and nodes across the management stack of the vCenter Server system. A list of default services is available for each vCenter Server instance. View the Health Status of Services and Nodes In the vSphere Web Client, you can view the health status of vCenter Server services and nodes.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 3 (Optional) In the Services Health and Nodes Health panes, click the hyperlink next to the health badge to view all services and nodes in this health state. For example, in the Services Health pane, click the hyperlink of the Warning health status. In the dialog box that pops up, select a service to view more information about the service and attempt to resolve the health issues of the service. VMware, Inc.
8 Performance Monitoring Utilities: resxtop and esxtop The resxtop and esxtop command-line utilities provide a detailed look at how ESXi uses resources in real time. You can start either utility in one of three modes: interactive (default), batch, or replay. The fundamental difference between resxtop and esxtop is that you can use resxtop remotely, whereas you can start esxtop only through the ESXi Shell of a local ESXi host.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance The ninth line contains information on the other options. Most important, if you saved a configuration in secure mode, you do not get an insecure esxtop without removing the s from the seventh line of your .esxtop50rc file. A number specifies the delay time between updates. As in interactive mode, typing c, m, d, u, v, n, I, or p determines the panel with which esxtop starts. Note Do not edit the .esxtop50rc file.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Using esxtop or resxtop in Interactive Mode By default, resxtop and esxtop run in interactive mode. Interactive mode displays statistics in different panels. A help menu is available for each panel. Interactive Mode Command-Line Options You can use various command-line options with esxtop and resxtop in interactive mode. Table 8‑2. Interactive Mode Command-Line Options Option Description h Prints help for resxtop (or esxtop) command-line options.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Below that the load averages over the past one, five, and fifteen minutes appear. Load averages consider both running and ready-to-run worlds. A load average of 1.00 means that there is full utilization of all physical CPUs. A load average of 2.00 means that the ESXi system might need twice as many physical CPUs as are currently available. Similarly, a load average of 0.50 means that the physical CPUs on the ESXi system are half utilized.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑3. Interactive Mode Single-Key Commands (Continued) Key Description p Switch to the CPU Power utilization panel. m Switch to the memory resource utilization panel. d Switch to the storage (disk) adapter resource utilization panel. u Switch to storage (disk) device resource utilization screen. v Switch to storage (disk) virtual machine resource utilization screen. n Switch to the network resource utilization panel. i Switch to the interrupt panel.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑4. CPU Panel Statistics (Continued) Line Description NAME Name of the resource pool or virtual machine of the world that is running, or name of the world that is running. NWLD Number of members in the resource pool or virtual machine of the world that is running. If a Group is expanded using the interactive command e, then NWLD for all the resulting worlds is 1. %STATE TIMES Set of CPU statistics made up of the following percentages.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑4. CPU Panel Statistics (Continued) Line Description HTSHARING Current hyperthreading configuration. CPU The physical or logical processor on which the world was running when resxtop (or esxtop) obtained this information. HTQ Indicates whether the world is quarantined or not. N means no and Y means yes. TIMER/s Timer rate for this world.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑5. CPU Panel Single-Key Commands Command Description e Toggles whether CPU statistics are displayed expanded or unexpanded. The expanded display includes CPU resource utilization statistics broken down by individual worlds belonging to a resource pool or virtual machine. All percentages for the individual worlds are percentage of a single physical CPU.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Memory Panel The Memory panel displays server-wide and group memory utilization statistics. As on the CPU panel, groups correspond to resource pools, running virtual machines, or other worlds that are consuming memory. The first line, found at the top of the Memory panel displays the current time, time since last reboot, number of currently running worlds, and memory overcommitment averages.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑7. Memory Panel Statistics (Continued) Field Description PSHARE (MB) Displays the ESXi page-sharing statistics. All numbers are in megabytes. shared Amount of the physical memory that is being shared. common Amount of the machine memory that is common across worlds. saving Amount of the machine memory that is saved because of page sharing. shared = common + saving SWAP (MB) ZIP (MB) MEMCTL (MB) Displays the ESXi swap usage statistics.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑7. Memory Panel Statistics (Continued) Field Description GRANT (MB) Amount of guest physical memory mapped to a resource pool or virtual machine. The consumed host machine memory is equal to GRANT - SHRDSVD. The values are the same for the VMM and VMX groups. CNSM Amount of the memory currently consumed by the virtual machine.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑7. Memory Panel Statistics (Continued) Field Description OVHD (MB) Current space overhead for resource pool. OVHDMAX (MB) Maximum space overhead that might be incurred by resource pool or virtual machine. OVHDUW (MB) Current space overhead for a user world. (You might see this statistic displayed, but it is intended for VMware use only.) GST_NDx (MB) Guest memory allocated for a resource pool on NUMA node x.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑9. Storage Adapter Panel Statistics (Continued) Column Description MBWRTN/s Megabytes written per second. RESV/s Number of SCSI reservations per second. CONS/s Number of SCSI reservation conflicts per second. DAVG/cmd Average device latency per command, in milliseconds. KAVG/cmd Average ESXi VMkernel latency per command, in milliseconds. GAVG/cmd Average virtual machine operating system latency per command, in milliseconds.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑10. Storage Adapter Panel Interactive Commands (Continued) Command Description w Sorts by WRITES/s column. R Sorts by MBREAD/s read column. T Sorts by MBWRTN/s written column. N Sorts first by ADAPTR column, then by PATH column. This is the default sort order. Storage Device Panel The storage device panel displays server-wide storage utilization statistics. By default, the information is grouped per storage device.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑11. Storage Device Panel Statistics (Continued) Column Description READS/s Number of read commands issued per second. WRITES/s Number of write commands issued per second. MBREAD/s Megabytes read per second. MBWRTN/s Megabytes written per second. DAVG/cmd Average device latency per command in milliseconds. KAVG/cmd Average ESXi VMkernel latency per command in milliseconds. GAVG/cmd Average guest operating system latency per command in milliseconds.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑12. Storage Device Panel Interactive Commands (Continued) Command Description w Sort by WRITES/s column. R Sort by MBREAD/s column. T Sort by MBWRTN column. N Sort first by DEVICE column, then by PATH, WORLD, and PARTITION column. This is the default sort order. L Changes the displayed length of the DEVICE column. Virtual Machine Storage Panel This panel displays virtual machine-centric storage statistics.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑14. Virtual Machine Storage Panel Interactive Commands (Continued) Command Description T Sort by MBWRTN/s column. N Sort first by VMNAME column, and then by VSCSINAME column. It is the default sort order. Network Panel The Network panel displays server-wide network utilization statistics. Statistics are arranged by port for each virtual network device configured.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑16. Network Panel Interactive Commands Command Description T Sorts by Mb Tx column. R Sorts by Mb Rx column. t Sorts by Packets Tx column. r Sorts by Packets Rx column. N Sorts by PORT-ID column. This is the default sort order. L Changes the displayed length of the DNAME column. Interrupt Panel The interrupt panel displays information about the use of interrupt vectors. Table 8‑17.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure 1 Start resxtop (or esxtop) to redirect the output to a file. For example: esxtop -b > my_file.csv The filename must have a .csv extension. The utility does not enforce this, but the post-processing tools require it. 2 Process statistics collected in batch mode using tools such as Microsoft Excel and Perfmon. In batch mode, resxtop (or esxtop) does not accept interactive commands.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance After you prepare for replay mode, you can use esxtop in this mode. See the vm-support man page. In replay mode, esxtop accepts the same set of interactive commands as in interactive mode and runs until no more snapshots are collected by vm-support to be read or until the requested number of iterations are completed. Prepare for Replay Mode To run in replay mode, you must prepare for replay mode. Procedure 1 Run vm-support in snapshot mode in the ESXi Shell.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 8‑19. Command-Line Options in Replay Mode Option Description R Path to the vm-support collected snapshot’s directory. a Show all statistics. This option overrides configuration file setups and shows all statistics. The configuration file can be the default ~/.esxtop50rc configuration file or a user-defined configuration file. b c filename Runs esxtop in Batch mode. Load a user-defined configuration file.
Using the vimtop Plug-In to Monitor the Resource Use of Services 9 You can use the vimtop utility plug-in to monitor vSphere services that run in the vCenter Server Appliance. vimtop is a tool similar to esxtop, which runs in the environment of the vCenter Server Appliance. By using the text-based interface of vimtop in the appliance shell, you can view overall information about the vCenter Server Appliance, and a list of vSphere services and their resource use.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 9‑1. Interactive Mode Command-Line Options (Continued) Option -c filename Description Loads a user-defined vimtop configuration file. If the -c option is not used, the default configuration file is /root/vimtop/vimtop.xml. You can create your own configuration file, specifying a different filename and path by using the W single-key interactive command. -n number Sets the number of performed iterations before the vimtop exits interactive mode.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 9‑2. Interactive Mode Single-Key Commands (Continued) Key Names Description Delete Remove selected column. c Add a column to the current view of the main panel. Use spacebar to add or remove columns from the displayed list. a Sort the selected column in ascending order. d Sort the selected column in descending order. z Clear the sort order for all columns. l Set width for the selected column. x Return the column widths to their default values.
Monitoring Networked Devices with SNMP and vSphere 10 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is commonly used by management programs to monitor a variety of networked devices. vSphere systems run SNMP agents, which can provide information to a management program in at least one of the following ways: n In response to a GET, GETBULK, or GETNEXT operation, which is a specific request for information from the management system.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance To use the vCenter Server SNMP traps, configure the SNMP settings on vCenter Server and your management client software to accept the traps from vCenter Server. The traps sent by vCenter Server are defined in VMWARE-VC-EVENT-MIB.mib. Configure SNMP Settings for vCenter Server If you plan to use SNMP with vCenter Server, you must use the vSphere Web Client to configure the SNMP settings.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Configure SNMP for ESXi ESXi includes an SNMP agent that can send notifications (traps and informs) and receive GET, GETBULK, and GETNEXT requests. In ESXi 5.1 and later releases, the SNMP agent adds support for version 3 of the SNMP protocol, offering increased security and improved functionality, including the ability to send informs. You can use esxcli commands to enable and configure the SNMP agent.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance By default, the embedded SNMP agent listens on UDP port 161 for polling requests from management systems. You can use the esxcli system snmp set command with the --port option to configure an alternative port. To avoid conflicting with other services, use a UDP port that is not defined in /etc/services. If you run ESXCLI commands through vCLI, you must supply connection options that specify the target host and login credentials.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 2 Configure the SNMP Agent to Send SNMP v1 or v2c Notifications You can use the ESXi SNMP agent to send virtual machine and environmental notifications to management systems. Configure SNMP Communities To enable the ESXi SNMP agent to send and receive SNMP v1 and v2c messages, you must configure at least one community for the agent. An SNMP community defines a group of devices and management systems.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If you run ESXCLI commands through vCLI, you must supply connection options that specify the target host and login credentials. If you use ESXCLI commands directly on a host using the ESXi Shell, you can use the commands as given without specifying connection options. For more information on connection options see vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples. Prerequisites Configure the ESXi SNMP agent by using the ESXCLI commands.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 2 Configure SNMP Authentication and Privacy Protocols SNMPv3 optionally supports authentication and privacy protocols. 3 Configure SNMP Users You can configure up to 5 users who can access SNMP v3 information. User names must be no more than 32 characters long. 4 Configure SNMP v3 Targets Configure SNMP v3 targets to allow the ESXi SNMP agent to send SNMP v3 traps and informs.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance If you run ESXCLI commands through vCLI, you must supply connection options that specify the target host and login credentials. If you use ESXCLI commands directly on a host using the ESXi Shell, you can use the commands as given without specifying connection options. For more information on connection options see vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples. Prerequisites Configure the ESXi SNMP agent by using the ESXCLI commands.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n Configure the ESXi SNMP agent by using the ESXCLI commands. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces for more information on how to use ESXCLI. Procedure 1 If you are using authentication or privacy, get the authentication and privacy hash values for the user by running the esxcli system snmp hash command with the --auth-hash and --priv-hash flags.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Parameter Description privhash The privacy hash value. security The level of security enabled for that user, which can be auth (for authentication only), priv (for authentication and privacy), or none (for no authentication or privacy).
vSphere Monitoring and Performance n Configure the ESXi SNMP agent by using the ESXCLI commands. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces for more information on how to use ESXCLI. Procedure 1 (Optional) If you are configuring informs, configure the remote users by running the esxcli system snmp set command with the --remote-users option.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 4 (Optional) Send a test notification to verify that the agent is configured correctly by running the esxcli system snmp test command. The agent sends a warmStart notification to the configured target. Configure the Source of Hardware Events Received by the SNMP Agent You can configure the ESXi SNMP agent to receive hardware events either from IPMI sensors or CIM indications. IPMI sensors are used for hardware monitoring in ESX/ESXi 4.x and earlier.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Here, oid_list is a list of OIDs for the notifications to filter, separated by commas. This list replaces any OIDs that were previously specified using this command. For example, to filter out coldStart (OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.6876.4.1.1.0) and warmStart (OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.6876.4.1.1.1) traps, run the following command: esxcli system snmp set --notraps 1.3.6.1.4.1.6876.4.1.1.0,1.3.6.1.4.1.6876.4.1.1.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 5 Load the VMware MIBs into the management software so you can view the symbolic names for vCenter Server or the host variables. To prevent lookup errors, load these MIB files in the following order before loading other MIB files: a VMWARE-ROOT-MIB.mib b VMWARE-TC-MIB.mib c VMWARE-PRODUCTS-MIB.mib The management software can now receive and interpret traps fromvCenter Server or ESXi hosts. SNMP Diagnostics You can use SNMP tools to diagnose configuration problems.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 10‑1. VMware MIB Files MIB File Description VMWARE-ROOT-MIB.mib Contains VMware’s enterprise OID and top-level OID assignments. VMWARE-AGENTCAP-MIB.mib Defines the capabilities of the VMware agents by product versions. This file is optional and might not be supported by all management systems. VMWARE-CIMOM-MIB.mib Defines variables and trap types used to report on the state of the CIM Object Management subsystem. VMWARE-ENV-MIB.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 10‑2. Other MIB Files (Continued) MIB File Description IP-MIB.mib Defines objects for managing implementations of the Internet Protocol (IP) in an IP version-independent manner. IP-FORWARD-MIB.mib Defines objects for managing IP forwarding. LLDP-V2-MIB.mib Defines objects for managing devices using Linked Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). SNMPv2-CONF.mib Defines conformance groups for MIBs. SNMPv2-MIB.mib Defines the SNMP version 2 MIB objects.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Table 10‑3. Diagnostic Counters from SNMPv2-MIB (Continued) Variable ID Mapping Description snmpSilentDrops snmp 31 The total number of Confirmed Class PDUs delivered to the SNMP entity that were silently dropped because the size of a reply containing an alternate Response Class PDU with an empty variable-bindings field was greater than either a local constraint or the maximum message size associated with the originator of the request.
System Log Files 11 In addition to lists of events and alarms, vSphere components generate assorted logs. These logs contain additional information about activities in your vSphere environment.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Procedure 1 From the direct console, select View System Logs. 2 Press a corresponding number key to view a log. vCenter Server agent (vpxa) logs appear if the host is managed by vCenter Server. 3 Press Enter or the spacebar to scroll through the messages. 4 (Optional) Perform a regular expression search. a Press the slash key (/). b Type the text to find. c Press Enter The found text is highlighted on the screen. 5 Press q to return to the direct console.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Export System Log Files When the vSphere Web Client is connected to vCenter Server, you can select hosts from which to download system log files. To save diagnostic data for ESXi hosts and vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client must be connected to the vCenter Server system. Required privileges: n To view diagnostic data: Read-Only User n To manage diagnostic data: Global.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance The Downloading Log Bundles dialog box appears when the Generating Diagnostic Bundle task is finished. The download status of each bundle appears in the dialog box. Some network errors can cause download failures. When you select an individual download in the dialog box, the error message for that operation appears under the name and location of the log bundle file. 12 Verify the information in the Summary and click Finish to download the log files.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 2 Click Support, and click Upload File to Service Request. An Upload File to Service Request dialog box opens. 3 Enter your Service Request ID with VMware. 4 Click Choose File, and select the log bundle you want to attach to your service request with VMware, and click OK. 5 If you protected your support package with a password, provide the password to VMware Technical Support by using a secure channel. The log bundle is sent to your service request.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Option Description Syslog.global.logDirUnique Selecting this option creates a subdirectory with the name of the ESXi host under the directory specified by Syslog.global.LogDir. A unique directory is useful if the same NFS directory is used by multiple ESXi hosts. Syslog.global.LogHost Remote host to which syslog messages are forwarded and port on which the remote host receives syslog messages.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance This procedure discusses limiting the virtual machine log file number on an individual virtual machine. To limit the number of log files for all virtual machines on a host, edit the /etc/vmware/config file. If the vmx.log.KeepOld property is not defined in the file, you can add it. For example, to keep ten log files for each virtual machine, add the following to /etc/vmware/config: vmx.log.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance You can use the log.rotateSize parameter to affect all log files, not just the virtual machine log files. You can change the value of vmx.log.rotateSize for all virtual machines from the vSphere Web Client or by using a PowerCLI script. Prerequisites Turn off the virtual machine. Procedure 1 Log in to a vCenter Server system using the vSphere Web Client and find the virtual machine. a In the Navigator, select VMs and Templates.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Collect vSphere Log Files You can collect vSphere log files in to a single location. Procedure u View the log file using one of the following methods. Task Action View the viclient-*.log file Change to the directory, %temp%. Download the log bundle from vSphere Web Client connected to a vCenter Server system To download the log bundle, do the following: a Select Administration > System Configuration.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Component Location Purpose vCenter agent log /var/log/vpxa.log Contains information about the agent that communicates with vCenter Server (if the host is managed by vCenter Server). Shell log /var/log/shell.log Contains a record of all commands typed into the ESXi Shell as well as shell events (for example, when the shell was enabled). Authentication /var/log/auth.log Contains all events related to authentication for the local system.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance where: n numLogs sets the maximum number of log entries for the specified log messages. After reaching this number, the specified log messages are filtered and ignored. Use 0 to filter and ignore all the specified log messages. n ident specifies one or more system components to apply the filter to the log messages that these components generate.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance ESXi VMkernel Files If the VMkernel fails, an error message appears and then the virtual machine reboots. If you specified a VMware core dump partition when you configured your virtual machine, the VMkernel also generates a core dump and error log. More serious problems in the VMkernel can freeze the machine without an error message or core dump.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Enable the Log Browser Plug-In on a vCenter Server Instance That Runs on Windows In vSphere 6.5 the log browser plug-in is part of the vCenter Server installation package, but is not enabled by default and therefore the vSphere Web Client does not display it. You can manually deploy the log browser plug-in on your vCenter Server system that runs on Windows. Prerequisites n Verify you have administrative privileges to access the Windows machine where vCenter Server runs.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance The log displays in the browser. Search Log Files You can search the log files by text or by time. Prerequisites If the log is unavailable, you must retrieve it. See Retrieve Logs. Procedure 1 Navigate to the Log Browser. 2 Select the type of log you want to browse. 3 In the Actions menu, select either Find by Text or Find by Time. 4 In the search area at the bottom of the Log Browser type the text or select the time you want to search.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance 4 Type a filter name. 5 Click Save to save the filter. The filter is saved on the vSphere Web Client server and is available the next time you start the vSphere Web Client. 6 Click Filter to view the results in the Log Browser. What to do next You can load saved filters from your local system by clicking Save to local system. The filters are saved in XML format. You can also load filters from an XML file from your local system by clicking Load from local system.
vSphere Monitoring and Performance Compare Log Files You can open multiple windows in the Log Browser to compare log files. Procedure 1 Navigate to the Log Browser and retrieve a log file from an object. 2 Select Actions > New Browser Window to open a window in the Log Browser. 3 In the Log Browser window, retrieve another log file to view. You can perform the same actions with the log file opened in the new window as you can with the original Log Browser window.
