VMware vCenter plugin

For more information about what this plugin does and the data streams it retrieves, see:

Monitor key metrics and states from your VMWare vCenter environment.

An on-prem data source connects a service running in your internal network to SquaredUp. They require an agent installed on a machine that has access to your internal network.

To add a data source click on the + next to Data Sources on the left-hand menu in SquaredUp. Search for the data source and click on it to open the Configure data source page.

Before you start

Prerequisites

This plugin is compatible with both Linux and Windows Server.

Configuring and deploying an agent

If you have already created an agent in SquaredUp that you can use for this data source, you can skip this step and choose the agent group you want to use while Configuring the data source.

See one of the following, depending on your platform type:

Configuring the data source

Display Name:
Enter a name for your data source. This helps you to identify this data source in the list of your data sources.
Server URL:
Enter the URL of your VMware vCenter server.
Agent Group:
Select the agent group you configured from the list.
Username:
Enter the username of a VMware vCenter user with read-only permissions. You can use either UPN or domain \ user formats, as they are both fully supported by VMware.
Password:
Enter the password of the VMware vCenter account Username.
Restrict access to this data source:
You can enable this option if you only want certain users or groups to have access to the data source, or the permission to link it to new workspaces. See Access control for more information.
Install Sample Dashboards:
Select whether you would like to install sample dashboards with the data source. By default, this is set to on.
You can also add a data source from Settings > Data Sources > Add data source, but sample dashboards are not added when using this method.
Click Test and add to validate the data source configuration. SquaredUp will now attempt to connect to SquaredUp using the provided authentication method. If this process fails, see Testing and troubleshooting for assistance with the corresponding errors.

Testing and Troubleshooting

By default, the following URL is used to connect to ESX or ESXi, and vCenter:

ESX or ESXi: https://{manager-address}/sdk/vimService.wsdl
vCenter: https://{manager-address}/sdk/vimService.wsdl

The URL can vary in your environment if the administrator of the ESX box or vCenter changed the configuration of the API. For example, if the HTTP protocol is used instead of the HTTPS one.

Ensure that the vSphere Web Services SDK is set up and verify if the given URL is valid. To check if the URL can be accessed, paste it to the Web browser. If the URL cannot be accessed, check the setup of the URL in the vCenter settings. To do this, go to vCenter Server Settings > Advanced Settings and see the setting of the VirtualCenter.VimApiUrl parameter. If the URL cannot be reached, consult your VMware administrator.

Authentication and authorization govern access. vCenter Single Sign-On supports authentication, which means it determines whether a user can log in to vSphere components at all. Each user must be authorized to view or manipulate vSphere objects.

vCenter Server allows fine-grained control over authorization with permissions and roles. When you assign a permission to an object in the vCenter Server object hierarchy, you specify which user or group has which privileges on that object. To specify the privileges, you use roles, which are sets of privileges.

Privileges can be assigned to a user or group by selecting an object, such as a virtual machine or a vCenter Server system, and assigning a role on that object for the user or group.

The SquaredUp Relay was tested with the ReadOnlyUsers group, which inherits the Read-Only role.If another group is used, objects may or may not be visible to users based on how the group was defined and the roles it inherits.Please consult your VMware administrator for more information.

An agent's status is shown in SquaredUp Settings > Relay as a green tick, amber exclamation mark, red cross or gray question mark. Hovering over the status will show information about the last connection.

If the agent status is not green:

Check that the agent service is running (in Services on the server running the agent).
Check that the API key is correct. In SquaredUp you can see the last 4 digits of the API key in Settings > Relay and compare this with what's in the appsettings.json file in the agent folder /agent/transient/logs. If necessary, you can edit the agent and click Regenerate API Key to get a new key, then copy that into the appsettings.json file.
Look at the Properties of the SquaredUp Cloud Agent service:
1. On the server running the agent, open Services
2. Scroll down to the SquaredUp Cloud Agent in the list
3. Right-click on the SquaredUp Cloud Agent service and then Properties
4. Here you can see the Service name, Display name and Path to the agent folder.
5. You can also start or stop the service from here.
Check the agent logs for any connectivity errors. Support may ask you to change the LogLevel from Information to Debug in the appsettings.json file.
Check SquaredUp for any reported outages: https://squaredup.statuspage.io/

vCenter Server systems and hosts use data counters to query for statistics. A data counter is a unit of information relevant to a given inventory object or device.

Each counter collects data for a different statistic in a metric group. For example, the disk metric group includes separate data counters to collect data for disk read rate, disk write rate, and disk usage.

Statistics for each counter are rolled up after a specified collection interval. Each data counter consists of several attributes that are used to determine the statistical value collected.

For a complete list and description of performance metrics, see the vSphere API Reference.

Collection levels determine the number of counters for which data is gathered during each collection interval. Collection intervals determine the time period during which statistics are aggregated, calculated, rolled up, and archived in the vCenter Server database.

Together, the collection interval and collection level determine how much statistical data is collected and stored in your vCenter Server database.

Your VMware administrator controls these settings.

Collection intervals determine the duration for which statistics are aggregated, calculated, rolled up, and archived.

Together, the collection interval and collection level determine how much statistical data is gathered and stored in your vCenter Server database.

Collection Interval / Archive Length	Collection Frequency	Default Behavior
1 Day	5 Minutes	Real-time (20s) statistics are rolled up to create one data point every 5 minutes. The result is 12 data points every hour and 288 data points every day. After 30 minutes, the six data points collected are aggregated and rolled up as a data point for the 1-Week time range.
1 Week	30 Minutes	1-Day statistics are rolled up to create one data point every 30 minutes. The result is 48 data points every day and 336 data points every week. Every 2 hours, the 12 data points collected are aggregated and rolled up as a data point for the 1-Month time range.
1 Month	2 Hours	1-Week statistics are rolled up to create one data point every 2 hours. The result is 12 data points every day and 360 data points every month (assuming a 30-day month). After 24 hours, the 12 data points collected are aggregated and rolled up as a data point for the 1-Year time range.
1 Year	1 Day	1-Month statistics are rolled up to create one data point every day. The result is 365 data points each year.

Your VMware administrator controls these settings.

Each collection interval has a default collection level that determines the amount of data gathered and which counters are available for display in the charts. Collection levels are also referred to as statistics levels.

Level	Metrics	Best Practice
Level 1	Cluster Services (VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler): All metrics CPU: cpuentitlement, totalmhz, usage (average), usagemhz Disk: capacity, maxTotalLatency, provisioned, unshared, usage (average), used Memory: consumed, mementitlement, overhead, swapinRate, swapoutRate, swapused, totalmb, usage (average), vmmemctl (balloon), totalbandwidth (DRAM or PMem) Network: usage (average), IPv6 System: heartbeat, uptime Virtual Machine Operations: numChangeDS, numChangeHost, numChangeHostDS	Level 1 is the default Collection Level for all Collection Intervals.
Level 2	Level 1 metrics CPU: idle, reservedCapacity Disk: All metrics, excluding numberRead and numberWrite. Memory: All metrics, excluding memUsed, maximum and minimum rollup values, read or write latency (DRAM or PMem). Virtual Machine Operations: All metrics	Use for long-term performance monitoring when device statistics are not required but you want to monitor more than the basic statistics.
Level 3	Level 1 Level 2 metrics Metrics for all counters, excluding minimum and maximum rollup values. Device metrics	Use for short-term performance monitoring after encountering problems or when device statistics are required.
Level 4	All metrics supported by the vCenter Server, including minimum and maximum roll-up values.	Use for short-term performance monitoring after encountering problems or when device statistics are required.

Your VMware administrator controls these settings.

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