Vmware probe setup - Templates content-

[Jaguarnoise]

Hi all! I wonder if you guys can tell how the templates works on the vmware probe. I can see 3 templates but I'm not sure what's the difference between them.
Spectrum temp.
UMP Metrics
VM and Host temp.
Also, I was asked to list the available monitors for the vcenter and ESX, but so far I can only see in the device type column "host, vm, datastore,etc", therefore I'm not sure where can I found specific vcenter / ESX monitors.
As you can see I'm really lost, I'd really appreciate your input.

Thanks!!

PS: I couldn't found any broadcom pdf with a list of all the available monitors for this probe.

[David Michel]

It is my understanding the difference is in the focus for monitoring and what is enabled for that focus. 

Metrics page is:
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/vmware-vmware-monitoring/vmware-metrics.html

It is recommended to use Admin Console and not IM console for the vmware probe.

[Jaguarnoise]

I saw the metrics page, but right now I'm more into the vcenter / esx monitors, which I cannot found anywhere.  We're also using admin console instead of IM. :)

[Garin Walsh]

Think of the three templates that are there as examples - the UMP Metrics template was intended to easily provide the set of measures to populate the VMware dashboard in 9.x for instance. The equivalent dashboard is probably gone from 20.x now.

My suggestion is to look at the templates that are there, pick one that's close to what you want, then make a copy of it. then edit the copy to your hearts delight.

Note that the template is just that, so if you have an install, deploy the template, and then make changes to the template, they won't take effect. You then have to deploy the template to the VM host again to put it into play.

Would be really nice if there was a vmware probe callback to do that template deployment (hint hint) but to the best of my knowledge it's manual today.

[Jaguarnoise]

Thanks, but have you found  a document or a way to know which monitor applies to Vcenters only or ESX only?
So far I'm only able to see the device type which includes the following items:
Spectrum Template: Cluser, Host (ESX? Vcenter?), Resource Pool (Vcenters?), Virtual Machines.

VM and Host Template: CPUs, Host, Host CPUs, Host memory, VM CPUs,  VM Memory.  This template sounds more like a metric to me.

[Garin Walsh]

Not sure exactly how to directly answer your question but to take a stab:

The Vmware probe comes with over a hundred predefined tests - I think that the general idea of the developer was that if the VMware API exposed a measure, the probe would have a test to evaluate that measure and potentially save it as a QoS. That created an issue for the end user because it's a pretty steep slope to climb when setting up the probe completely manually to get all the pieces you need so that idea of a "template" was added to the probe. A template in this case is a pre-defined subset of these tests. In parallel with this, there are some well defined end users - those who were going to use the UIM 9.x out of the box dashboards, those forwarding UIM alarms on to Spectrum, etc. And so, to make their lives easier, the UIM developers create templates for these use cases.

So, if your use case is similar to one of the existing, you can use that template. If not, you can create your own from scratch or you can take a template and add/remove from it.

Personally, I started with the UIM dashboard template and then wound up editing that significantly.

With regards to which aspect of VMware a specific test applies to, you can take the UIM documentation and last I knew there was a section which tided the test/metric back to the Vmware value and then you can take that vmware value and use the product documentation to answer your question. It would be helpful to understand why you are trying to make the distinction as I've not found such distinctions useful - if it's an issue for a standalone server it's going to be an issue for a cluster too. 

The probe once configured does have a "Device" category of test/metric which might be what you are actually looking for.

[Deactivated User]

Thanks Garin, just one more thing, we're moving our vmware probe setup to the admin console, and so far I can see the templates handling very different of what I used to in IM.
We usually consult this guide for the IM configuration:

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/vmware-vmware-monitoring/vmware-im-configuration.html

Do you have a similar practical guide for the admin console vmware probe ?
Thanks!

[Deactivated User]

Ok, since we're not able to use the vm probe administration via IM anymore per Broadcom recommendations, I wonder if you guys have or know were I can get a pdf/web guide for the admin console (UIM version) configuration. I've enbabled this new version in a test environment but it has a whole new interface which I don't understand, such as templates are in a separate window and I'm not able to drag a drop, It's very messy.  I'm adding  a capture of the test template I made just to show you how's the new interface looks like.
Have you guys try it already? How did you manage to get it running?



Thanks!

[Deactivated User]

Guys, just one more thing, we're moving our vmware probe setup to the admin console, and so far I can see the templates handling very different of what I used to in IM.
We usually consult this guide for the IM configuration:


https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/vmware-vmware-monitoring/vmware-im-configuration.html

Do you have a similar practical guide for the admin console vmware probe ?
Thanks!

[Garin Walsh]

Well I'd start with ignoring the recommendation not to use IM. Put it into the offhand mention category of things.

Top right in AC is a ? icon



That links to the help doc and is what's available.

[Stephen Danseglio]

I will work with the techdocs team to provide you with this information asap.

Steve

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Support Engineer
Broadcom
US
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[Issac08]

I would suggest to work with your vmware admin and enable those alerting ,because the default configuration will throw many alerts . so it must based on environment.

[Jaguarnoise]

Yes, we're working with vm team on this, although I have't found yet a new guide for the Admin console template configuration?

[Stephen Danseglio]

Please refer to this url for the list of all available vmware probe metrics.

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/vmware-vmware-monitoring/vmware-metrics.html

Ill try to put together a comprehensive KB Article on the templates...stay tuned.

Steve

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Support Engineer
Broadcom
US
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[Stephen Danseglio]

Have you seen this techdoc page?

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/vmware-vmware-monitoring/vmware-ac-configuration/vmware-ac-apply-monitoring-with-templates.html

Also, here are some suggested KPIs I collected some time ago when implementing VMware monitoring for a customer.

VMware KPIs
https://s3.amazonaws.com/articlefiles/article+3318/KPIs.pdf

vmware templates allow you to define reusable sets of monitors for vCenter or ESX server resources.

Spectrum Template
Enables the metrics required for interoperability with the Spectrum product.

UMP Metrics
Enables VMware metrics for the Unified Monitoring Portal (UMP) Unified Dashboards / Lists - (Prior to UIM 20.3)

VM and Host Template
Enables basic VM and host metrics - contains commonly used monitoring configurations that enable you to quickly apply monitoring for VMs and Hosts.

Please review the following KB Article.

VMware Frequently Asked Questions FAQs
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/189579/

Afterwards, please let me know if you still have any questions.

In the meantime, I will try to obtain a breakdown of which monitors apply to vCenter versus ESX Hosts, Clusters, Resource Pools, etc.

Best Regards,
Steve

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Support Engineer
Broadcom
US

[Jaguarnoise]

Thanks Steve, I hope you can create a more graphical guide since the new tree structure is not as friendly as the IM so far.

[Stephen Danseglio]

Access the vmware metrics page for a list of vmware metrics categorized by Resource.

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/vmware-vmware-monitoring/vmware-metrics.html

Steve

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Support Engineer
Broadcom
US
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