Prerequisites
Monitoring of VMware environments is performed using the VMware API Web Services.
Depending on the VMware environment, the ServiceNav Box must be able to access these Web Services in https, and authenticate itself.
In the case where the VMware datacenter is managed by a vCenter, the information should be collected on the vCenter: this is where it is most recent, especially in terms of datastore space usage. Moreover, experience shows that the collection of information at the ESX level managed by a vCenter may not work randomly, generating UNKNOWN / CRITICAL statuses. Therefore, in this case, you need to create a user in the vCenter with read-only rights to the vCenter.
In the case of one or more ESX hypervisors alone, the information will be collected directly on the ESX host. In this case, create a local user on the ESX host with read-only rights, as shown here : Prerequisite: configure a service account to monitor ESXi
Once the user is created in the hypervisors and the vCenter, you have to fill it in the section: "Configuration Supervision", menu: "General" then "Supervision account". We add the VMware account with the adhoc user created above.
VMware datacenter monitoring through vCenter: create a monitoring account VMware vCenter
Monitoring ESXi directly on the host: create a monitoring account : VMware
Equipment models
The monitoring of VMware environments is very advanced in ServiceNav. For this reason, we have produced device templates that allow you to deploy unitary services very quickly. These device templates depend on the context: vCenter or isolated ESX host.
Monitoring via vCenter
| System - VMware vCenter | Allows you to monitor the status of the datastores and alarms of a VMware vCenter. In the case of multiple datastores, configure a single service per datastore. |
| System - VMware vCenter - ESX | This device model collects status and metrics information from a host on a VMware vCenter: vCenter connection status, latencies, CPU, memory, hardware health, etc. The VMware host name must be the same in monitoring and in vCenter. |
| System - VMware vCenter - VM | A device model for collecting all virtual machine status and metrics information on a vCenter through the VMware Web Service. The name of the VM must be the same in the supervision and in vCenter. |
| System - VMware vCenter - VM Status | A device model for collecting all virtual machine status information on a vCenter through the VMware Web Service: configuration issues, vCenter connection status, operating system status, VMware Tools status. The name of the VM must be the same in the supervision and in vCenter. |
Monitoring an isolated 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 on a VMware ESX hypervisor when the hypervisor is not a member of a vCenter cluster. |
