How to limit Spectrum model creation from VHM

[mgenest.1]

When using VHM in Spectrum, models are created based upon the contents of the vCenter server, and the VCAIM host is managed by VAIM.

 

But, the creation is models is unrestricted within a given vCenter datacenter model, and we have ended up with models in Spectrum that we don't want.  How do we prevent this?

 

For example, assume VCAIM is managing the following vCenter servers: BOSTON and CHICAGO.

-> vCenter BOSTON has datacenters DC1 and DC2

-> vCenter CHICAGO has datacenter DC3.

 

Suppose the following:

-> datacenter DC1 has VMs BOSsystemX, BOSsystemY, and BOSsystemZ.

-> datacenter DC2 has VMs BOSsystemA, BOSsystemB, and BOSsystemC.

-> datacenter DC3 has VMs CHIsystemP, CHIsystemQ, and CHIsystemR.

 

Now, we want to discover and manage the following VMs: BOSsystemX, BOSsystemY, CHIsystemP, CHIsystemQ, and CHIsystemR.

 

We DO NOT want to discover and manage BOSsystemZ, BOSsystemA, BOSsystemB, and BOSsystemC.

 

Since we we don't want to manage any VMS in DC2, we can just set model creation for that datacenter to 'NO' in Spectrum, or we can remove the BOSTON vCenter from the VCAIM.

 

Since we want to manage all the VMs in DC3, we can just set model creation for that datacenter to 'YES' in Spectrum.

 

But, DC1 is a problem.  If we turn on modeling for DC1, then we get all the models in DC1.  And, this has turned into an issue, because we are eating up the "accountable" model license count in Spectrum on models we don't want to monitor.

 

I have not found a way to limit the VHM discovery.

 

We have the following settings for VHM:

"Automatically Model New Datacenters" = 'NO'.

"Allow Device Model Deletes During vCenter Discovery" = 'NO'

"Retain SMMP-enabled Virtual Machines During VMware Manager Deletion" = 'YES'

 

Any ideas???

[mgenest.1]

Actually, there is a problem with my example:

if the BOSTON vCenter server was removed from VCAIM, it would take DC1 and DC2, so that would not be a good solution.

[Brian Hunter]

In our environment we would like to limit the VCAIM to ESX hosts only in datacenters, but exclude all VM's.  One of our VMware admins is attempting to find some way to modify the VCAIM vCenter user permissions to limit access to ESX hosts only, but I'm not certain what the outcome will be.  So, I would like to know if anyone's had success in doing something like this?  Our goal is to only have the ESX hosts modeled in Spectrum using the VCAIM, but no VM's.