VMware ESX/ESXi Server - Virtual Machines

The virtual machines (VMs) present in a VMware ESX/ESXi server are monitored based on the parameters or the attributes listed below. These attributes provide information about the functioning of the VMs. You can also configure thresholds to the numerical attributes of the VMs based on these details.

  • Availability tab lists all the virtual machines present in the ESX/ESXi servers and their availability status. You can also view Availability history of the virtual machines for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
  • Performance tab shows some key performance indicators of the virtual machine including CPU Utilization, Memory Utilization, Disk I/O Utilization and Network Utilization along with heat charts for these attributes. This tab also shows the health status and events for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
  • List view tab displays all the virtual machines discovered under each ESX/ESXi server. This view provides an overall idea of the availability and health of all the virtual machines. The list view also enables you to perform bulk admin configurations.
  • Top Virtual Machines tab shows graphs for the top CPU consumers, top memory consumers, top disk I/O consumers, and top network consumers of the ESX/ESXi server. This section enables you to find out which virtual machines are consuming your server resources and take action accordingly.

Click on the individual monitors listed to view detailed performance metrics of the corresponding virtual machine. These metrics are categorized into 6 separate tabs for easy understanding. Below is an explanation of the metrics shown in these tabs:

Overview

This tab provides a high-level overview of the virtual machine as well as its resource utilization.

Parameter Description
Monitor Information
Name The name of the virtual machine
Type Denotes the type you are monitoring.
Health Denotes the health (Clear, Warning, Critical) status of the VM.
Last Polled at Specifies the time at which the last poll was performed.
Next Poll at Specifies the time at which the next poll is scheduled.
Availability Shows the current status of the VM - available or not available.
CPU & Memory Utilization
CPU Utilization The CPU Usage of the VM as percentage
CPU Usage The CPU usage in Mega Hertz
Memory Utilization The memory utilization of theVM in percentage
CPU Ready The percentage of time that the virtual machine was ready, but could not be scheduled to run on the physical CPU (in ms).
CPU Wait Total CPU time spent in wait state (in ms).
Disk & Network Usage
Disk I/O Utilization The disk input/output utilization of the VM (in KBps).
Network Utilization The network usage of the VM (in KBps).

Memory

This tab shows metrics about the memory utilization of the virtual machine

Parameter Description
Active Memory Amount of memory that is actively used, measured as recently touched pages (in MB).
Overhead Memory Amount of additional host memory allocated to the virtual machine.
Swapped Memory Amount of memory that is swapped.
Shared Memory Amount of memory that is shared between virtual machines.
Ballooned Memory Amount of memory held by memory control for ballooning.
Granted Memory Amount of physical memory granted. For hosts this can be represented as regions of memory for each virtual machine.

Datastore

Parameter Description
Datastore Name of the datastore
Type Type of datastore (Example: VMFS or VMware File System)
Capacity GB The total space available in this datastore (in GB).
Used GB The used space of this datastore (in GB).
Free GB The free space of this datastore (in GB).
Utilization % Percentage of used space in this datastore
Free Space % Percentage of free space in this datastore
Health Overall health of the datastore
Read Rate Rate of reading data from the datastore (in KBps).
Write Rate Rate of writing data to the datastore (in KBps).
Read Latency The average time a read from the datastore takes (in ms).
Write Latency The average time a write to the datastore takes (ms)
 
Important Note:
  • In Applications Manager versions below 14790, if a datastore was used by multiple ESXi servers, then each ESXi server would add the same datastore and monitor it separately.
  • From version 14790 onwards, existing datastore would be dropped and added automatically, and all associated ESXi servers would then be mapped to the single datastore instance.
  • As a result, this would lead to data and alert configuration loss for existing datastores.
  • However, history data can be obtained if proper backup is performed before upgrading Applications Manager.

Network

The metrics in this category contain the VM network status details.

Parameter Description
Network Interface
Name Name of the Network Interface Card (NIC)
IP Address The ip address of the NIC
Mac Address The Mac address of the NIC
Network The name of the network
Health Indicates the health of the Network Interface Card
Network Interface Utilization
Name Name of the network inteface card(NIC) of the host
Data Receive Rate The rate at which this NIC receives data (in KBps).
Data Transmit Rate The rate at which this NIC transfers data (in KBps).
Packets Received Number of network packets received by this NIC
Packets Transmitted Number of network packets transmitted by this NIC
Health Overall health of this NIC

Disk

This tab shows detailed disk stats of the virtual machine

Parameter Description
LUN Logical unit number associated with the physical disk
Disk Read Rate Disk read rate of this LUN (in KBps).
Disk Write Rate Disk write rate of this LUN (in KBps).
Disk Reads Number of reads to this LUN during the defined interval
Disk Writes Number of writes to this LUN during the defined interval
Health Overall health of this LUN
Commands Aborted Number of SCSI commands aborted during the collection interval
Bus Resets Number of SCSI-bus reset commands issued during the collection interval
Guest Disk Partitions
Disk Partition Name of the partition
Capacity Capacity of the Disk Partition (in GB).
Free Free Space available in the Partition (in GB).
Used Used Space in the Partition (in GB).
Utilization % Percentage of used space in this datastore
Free Space % Percentage of free space in this datastore

Configuration

Parameter Description
UUID Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) which is stored in the SMBIOS system information descriptor.
Instance UUID Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) assigned by the VCenter/ESx. Used for virtualization management purposes.
OS Name Operating System assigned to the VM
Power The status of the power of the virtual machine (poweredOn, poweredOff, suspend)
VM Path Name Path name to the configuration file for the virtual machine, e.g. the .vmx file. This also implicitly defines the configuration directory.
IP Address The IP address assigned to the VM
Host Name The host on which the VM is running
Boot time The time when the VM was booted.
Tools Version Current version of VMware Tools running
Number of CPUs Number of CPUs present in the VM
Configured Memory The amount of memory configured for this VM
Number of Virtual Disks The number of virtual disks in the VM

 

Important Note: By default, Applications Manager will monitor the Virtual Machine Power status and make it down when the Virtual Machines are turned off. Default behaviour is to escalate the child VM monitor's health status to parent ESXi host monitor. As a result, Virtual machine down status will affect the parent ESXi host monitor. To skip this behaviour, follow the below mentioned steps:
  1. Disable the powered off VMs manually from Overview page of ESXi host monitor. Make sure to enable it back in case VM power status needs to be monitored again.
  2. Remove the health attribute of VM from ESXi host monitor's health attribute dependency list. This can be done by navigating to the ESXi host monitor page → click Configure Alarm → Configure Health → enable the checkbox Configure actions at attribute level → enable the checkbox Show advanced option → move the health of the reported VM's back from Selected dependent attributes box to List of dependent attributes box and save the changes.
  3. If the child VM is not required to be monitored, delete the VM and update the ESXi monitor as Do not discover VM from Edit Monitor page of the reported ESXi host.

Guest OS Monitoring

Guest OS monitoring allows to monitor the Processes, Services, Event Logs(if windows VM) in a Virtual Machine monitor. To enable this for a VM monitor, Go to VM Monitor Details page -> Click Monitor Actions -> Click 'Configure OS' option. Provide the server credentials to connect with the OS. Once configured, under the Process / Services tab, the option to Add/Remove the process will be shown. By using this option, we can add process / services for monitoring.

Note: Ensure that the VMware Tools are installed on the VM and the guest services are running, for proper monitoring.

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