VMWare ESX and VMM

[Migration User]

Good %GreetingTime%,

I have what I hope is a simple question from a noob.

I see how to use the Virtual Machine Manager, and have figured out how to add ESX hosts, and can also see their corresponding guests. I understand that for each of the guests, I will have to inventory them as I would a physical endpoint e.g. install a SMAgent.

The questions I have for the hosts are these:

1. Because I have added the VMWare ESX host to the VMM console, do I need to to also add an Symantec Management Agent to the same VMWre ESX host as well? Or is it considered inventoried already, and therefore the answer is no?
2. Also What kind of a license is consumed through the VMM Manager is consumed? Does it consume any license at all..it doesn't have an SMAgent installed so I guess no license is required?

Thanks in advance.

[Igor Perevozchikov]

Hi Mike,

Mike: Because I have added the VMWare ESX host to the VMM console, do I need to to also add an Symantec Management Agent to the same VMWre ESX host as well? Or is it considered inventoried already, and therefore the answer is no?

IP: If you are going to only manage your virtual machines (take/revert snapshots, power on/off) and take inventory scan, then there is no need to install Agent on ESX Hosts. If you want to deploy on ESX hosts some software, patch updates or run custom inventory scans about hardware/software, then you need to install Agent and other solution plug-ins on this ESX host.

Mike: Also What kind of a license is consumed through the VMM Manager is consumed? Does it consume any license at all..it doesn't have an SMAgent installed so I guess no license is required?

IP: VMM Manager has 1 license node, so you can manage your virtual machines as much as you want, while this license isn't expired yet.

There is an article about VMM usage (Probably you've already seen this)

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/itms-76-how-use-virtual-machine-management-76

 

Thanks,

IP.

[Migration User]

Hi Igor, 

Thanks for your reply. I did see your article, and actually used it in the lab environment so thanks heaps for that - it was very helpful.

I am curious about your first answer though. I got the impression from your answer that you can install a SMA, and associated plugins? Can you please clarify for me?

1. I have tried installing the agent in my lab on both a ESX5.1, and ESX5.5 host, and in both cases when I tried to do the agent push, it did authenticate fine, however it returned a 'Unsupported Platform' error message. So I believe that there is NO ULM AGENT support for ESX host?
2. I read another link you responded to regarding support for ESX. It talks about 'Limited Agentless Support'. Again what does that even mean lol. I can see the device appear in the Activity Centre, but can't see any hardware information e.g. Make, Model, Serial #. However I can see Vendor, model, ip, hostname in the VMM console. Is this is good as it gets? 

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/agent-installation-procedure-vmware-esx-host

1. We don't care about the enhanced features of the VMM console, we just want inventory (I can't figure out why you would even want to use it when you can do it through the VMWare vSphere console). So is all we need to do: a. Discovery, VMM Inventory?

Also just so we are clear, I understand that the guests need the SMA installed just like any normal bare metal device to collect inventory.

 

[Igor Perevozchikov]

Sorry, I was wrong about installation of ULM Agent on ESX Server, since it isn't supported to be as managed ESX Server by ITMS 7.5.x

• Seems like you can perform only agentless inventory task execution on your ESX Servers.
• However there is an agentless inventory task. You can check what SNMP OIDS are there or import your and then perform "Agentless Inventory" task to get required inventoried data.

Thanks,

IP.