ESX and ESXI monitoring

[jitenderbatheja]

I have setup of ESX 4 and ESXI 5 servers in my Environment. I have got the request to monitor the ESX and ESXI servers from a tool. Now the team which is going to monitor the ESX and ESXI servers don’t have in formation regarding the ESX and ESXI service monitoring.

Q1. Now I want to know can we install any exe or convert that exe into some file by which we can install the same on ESX and ESXI servers. How to create that package and how to install on ESX and ESXI servers.

Q2. Also which are the services which we can monitor for ESX and ESXI servers which help us to monitor the servers.

Q3. Is this required or helpful to install the monitoring tool on esx or esxi servers or we can achieve the same by configuring the alerts on vCenter Servers.

Q4. If we can achieve the same from Vcenter server then which monitoring parameters needs to enable.

[virtualinstall]

You can use embedded SNMP agent to monitor the ESXi hosts, information on this here:

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.monitoring.doc_50%2FGUID-8EF36D7D-59B6-4C74-B1AA-4A9D18AB6250.html

[jrmunday]

There are a number of options available (vCenter, Syslog, SNMP, Agents (for example, HP/Dell), etc.) ... as you mention vCenter I assume you are licenced and use this already and should take advantage of all the alarm definitions and triggers which you can use this to send email notifications, etc.

I think you first need to clarify what your monitoring requirements are what the monitoring team will do in the case of getting alerted of any problems. Are you just monitoring the hosts or VM's as well? I am going to assume just the hosts, so here are some examples of what you can monitor using vCenter;

• Host is unavailable, disconnected, performance thresholds
  
• Storage paths, performance
  
• Network ulpinks degraded, redundancy, etc.
  

The possibilities are endless, so first be clear on your requirements and then set out satisfy all of them.