Pre-requisites
Monitoring VMware environments is performed using VMware API Web Services.
Depending on your VMware environment, the ServiceNav Box must be able to access these Web Services using https or authenticate directly.
If the VMware datacenter is managed by a vCenter, information must be collected via vCenter: this is where it is most current, especially in terms of used datastore space. Moreover, experience shows that collection of information from ESX servers directly, yet managed by vCenter, may randomly misfire, generating UNKNOWN / CRITICAL statuses. In this case, it is necessary to create a user in vCenter with read-only rights on vCenter.
In the case of one or more standalone ESX hosts, the information will be collected directly from the ESX host. In this case, create a local user on the ESX host with read-only rights, as shown here : Pre-requisite: configure a service account to monitor ESXi.
Once the user has been created on the host and/or vCenter, they must be added as monitoring accounts", menu: "Configuration >General >Monitoring accounts. We add the VMware accounts with the bespoke user details created above.
VMware datacenter monitoring via vCenter: Create a monitoring account VMware vCenter
Direct ESXi monitoring from the host: create a monitoring account : VMware
Host Templates
Monitoring VMware environments is very thorough in ServiceNav. For this reason, we have produced host templates that allow you to deploy many services very quickly. These host templates are context dependent: vCenter or standalone ESX host.
Monitoring via vCenter
| System - VMware vCenter | Allows you to monitor the status of datastores and alarms via VMware vCenter. In the case of multiple datastores, configure one service per datastore. |
| System - VMware vCenter - ESX | This host template collects status and performance information about a host managed via VMware vCenter: vCenter connection status, latency, processor, memory, hardware health, and more. VMware host name must be the same in ServiceNav and in vCenter. |
| System - VMware vCenter - VM | Host template for collecting all status and performance information from a virtual machine via vCenter using the VMware Web Service. The name of the VM must be the same in ServiceNav and in vCenter.. |
| System - VMware vCenter - VM Status | Host template for collecting all the status information of a virtual machine via vCenter using the VMware Web Service: configuration problems, vCenter connection status, operating system status, VMware Tools status. The name of the VM must be the same in ServiceNav and in vCenter.. |
Monitoring a standalone ESX host
| System - VMware ESX | This template is used to monitor a VMware ESX/ESXi hypervisor when it is not a member of a vCenter cluster. |
| System - VMware ESX - VM | This template is used to monitor virtual machines guests on a VMware ESX hypervisor when the VMware ESX hypervisor is not a member of a vCenter cluster. |
