Introduction

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Use the following menu options to navigate the SL1 user interface:

  • To view a pop-out list of menu options, click the menu icon ().
  • To view a page containing all of the menu options, click the Advanced menu icon ().

The following sections provide an overview of VMware and the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack:

What is VMware vSphere?

vSphere is VMware's cloud virtualization platform that enables users to deploy and manage VMware cloud-based resources using a suite of components, including the vCenter Server centralized management application and ESX/ESXi host servers.

To familiarize yourself with VMware terminology, see the VMware Master Glossary: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/master_glossary.pdf.

What Does the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack Monitor?

To monitor VMware virtual infrastructure using SL1, you must install the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack. This PowerPack enables you to discover, model, and collect data about all aspects of VMware vSphere, including datacenters, clusters, virtual machines, and datastores.

The VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack includes:

  • One example credential you can use as templates to create SOAP/XML credentials to connect to the VMware devices you want to monitor.

  • Dynamic Applications to discover, model, and monitor performance metrics and/or collect configuration data for VMware devices.
  • Device Classes for each of the VMware devices SL1 monitors.
  • A Device Template that enables you to easily align multiple Dynamic Applications to VMware devices.
  • Event Policies and corresponding alerts that are triggered when VMware devices meet certain status criteria.
  • Device dashboards for several of the discoverable VMware component devices.

The VMware: vSphere Dashboards PowerPack contains additional dashboards that display data collected from VMware systems. To view these dashboards, you must install the VMware: vSphere Dashboards PowerPack on your SL1 System. (For more information, see the section on VMware Dashboards.)

Installing the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack

Before completing the steps in this section, you must import and install the latest version of the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack.

SL1 8.14.1 is active with VMware vSphere Base Pack v215 pre-installed.

By default, installing a new version of a PowerPack overwrites all content from a previous version of that PowerPack that has already been installed on the target system. You can use the Enable Selective PowerPack Field Protection setting in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior) to prevent new PowerPacks from overwriting local changes for some commonly customized fields. (For more information, see the section on Global Settings.)

The minimum required MySQL version is 5.6.0.

To download and install the PowerPack:

  1. Search for and download the PowerPack from the PowerPacks page (Product Downloads > PowerPacks & SyncPacks) at the ScienceLogic Support Site.
  2. In SL1, go to the PowerPacks page (System > Manage > PowerPacks).
  3. Click the Actions button and choose Import PowerPack. The Import PowerPack dialog box appears.
  4. Click [Browse] and navigate to the PowerPack file from step 1.
  5. Select the PowerPack file and click Import. The PowerPack Installer modal displays a list of the PowerPack contents.
  6. Click Install. The PowerPack is added to the PowerPacks page.

If you exit the PowerPack Installer modal without installing the imported PowerPack, the imported PowerPack will not appear in the PowerPacks page. However, the imported PowerPack will appear in the Imported PowerPacks modal. This page appears when you click the Actions menu and select Install PowerPack.

Requirements and Limitations

The following limitations and requirements apply to specific functionality in the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack:

  • A new execution environment is available in this version of the PowerPack. However, the old environment will not be deleted. Users should remove the old executions environment after upgrading from VMware v215. To do this, go toSystem > Customize > ScienceLogic Libraries > Actions > Execution Environments and filter on 'VMware'. There will be two environments shown. Delete the environment that has an Env GUID of "0B01D6E38C4EB3E11BA0EBC67B22A23E".

  • A new execution environment is available in this version of the PowerPack. However, the old environment will not be deleted. Users should remove the old executions environment after upgrading to VMware v308. To do this, go toSystem > Customize > ScienceLogic Libraries > Actions > Execution Environments and filter on 'VMware'. There will be two environments shown. Delete the "VMware: vSphere Base Pack NEW" environment.

    • Do not perform discovery of an ESXi host that is already managed by an SL1-monitored vCenter due to possible failures in the PowerPack.

  • To collect I/O and latency metrics for datastores, you must enable Storage I/O Control. For information about Storage I/O Control, see the VMware knowledge base.
  • Datastore Storage Performance Statistics are available only from vCenter systems running vSphere API 4.1.2 or later. SL1 will not collect Datastore Storage Performance Statistics if the Dynamic Applications that use Dynamic Component Mapping are used to monitor ESX or ESXi servers directly.
  • Datastore Performance Statistics are unavailable for NFS datastores.
  • If VMware Tools is not installed on a guest VM, SL1 cannot collect all performance statistics for that guest VM.
  • Because no truly unique identifier is provided by the VMware vSphere API, it is possible that duplicate component devices could be created in SL1when a virtual machine vMotions is between separately monitored ESX/ESXi servers. (This issue does not affect vMotion events that occur within the same component tree, such as between two ESX/ESXi servers that are monitored through the same vCenter server.) Therefore, ScienceLogic recommends monitoring VMware servers through vCenter. In addition to accommodating vMotion events, monitoring through vCenter prevents performance issues on ESX/ESXi servers caused by API use.
  • If you want to delete and reinstall version 302 or higher of the VMware: vSphere Base Pack PowerPack, you should first delete any existing copies of the Device Template included in the PowerPack and then create new versions of them after reinstalling the PowerPack.This ensures that any copies of the Device Template included in thePowerPack will work properly after reinstallation. You should then assign the new Device Template(s) to any existing Discovery Sessions that were linked to the previous versions of the template(s).
  • In the "VMWare: Inventory Cache" Dynamic Application, the vSphere Instance UUID value will not be collected on ESXi root devices.
  • An error occurring while building Inventory Cache during initial discovery will not update the inventory cache expirations.
  • VMware v6.7's and VMware 7.2's hardware does not report a serial number for the "VMware HostSystem Configuration" application.
  • The VMware vSpherePowerPack does not support VMware NSX-T.
  • Performance metric API queries are limited by the maxQueryMetrics parameter in the vCenter configuration settings. Attempts to query a metric that exceeds the instance count limit will result in a "500-Internal Server Error". If you encounter this error, check the vCenter vpxd logs related to maxQueryMetrics and adjust the setting to a higher limit. For more information, see the related Knowledge Base article:https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2107096.
  • Unmerging VMware VirtualMachines in all versions of VMware vSpherePowerPacks will not remove aligned "VMware: VirtualMachine IC UpTime" Dynamic Applications. This task must be performed manually.

    • For more information on removing aligned dynamic applications, see the section on Manually Aligning a Dynamic Application to a Device.

  • Standalone ESXi hosts discovered and monitored as a root device behave differently than a vCenter. Some Dynamic Applications do not collect all of the data and some do not collect any data. The following Dynamic Applications do not collect any data:
    • VMware: VirtualMachine Storage Performance
    • VMware: Datastore Space Performance
    • VMware: Datastore Storage IO Performance
    • VMware: Hardware Monitoring Configuration
    • VMware: LicenseManager HostSystem Configuration