VMware vSphere Support in up.time

VMware vSphere/ESX server software enables a single host to run multiple virtual servers and their applications as individual instances. up.time can monitor both the server on which VMware ESX is running, and the instances that are running on that server. up.time 5 supports 3.x, 3i, and vSphere.

Using up.time, you can not only monitor vSphere/ESX servers and their instances, but you can also determine the optimal SAN deployment for you environment. Keeping track of the performance of a virtual server farm is easy using up.time's monitors, graphs, and reports. Or, use a report to zero in on physical servers that are good candidates for virtualization on a VMware server.

Consolidation and Density Optimization

Many organizations have a number of production servers that are not being used to their full capacity - servers that are running one or two applications which are not using the hardware to its potential. Instead of wasting resources, you can consolidate these applications in a virtual environment using VMware. Consolidation enables you to run applications on distinct servers, but without using as much hardware.

up.time's Server Virtualization report can help you to pinpoint physical servers that can be combined on a single virtual server. The report highlights servers that do not fully use their CPU, memory, or disk resources. The report factors in CPU, memory, network, and disk I/O over a period of time and calculates an appropriate mix of workloads. Instead of wasting time with guesswork, you can efficiently virtualize servers in your network using actual data.

With the Virtual Infrastructure Density report, up.time can display VM guest density of the VMware server farm and quickly help identify sprawl. The density report, in conjuction with up.time’s deep VMware metrics allow you to optimally mix VM guest workloads and behaviours.

 
 

Support for vSphere

vSphere is VMware’s latest software suite that manages multiple, physical VMware servers. up.time works in conjunction with vSphere to gather workload data from multiple ESX servers and their instances through a single entry point. up.time maintains un-aggregated historical data for root-cause or forensic analysis for a configurable amount of time up to two years.

vCenter Orchestrator Integration

With up.time, you can easily integrate with vCenter Orchestrator to trigger workflows based on up.time’s application and infrastructure monitoring capabilities. Additionally, using the up.time Orchestrator plugin, enable bi-directional communication between up.time and Orchestrator to dynamically adjust your VMware infrastructure to avoid outages.

 

 

Workload Monitoring

The ESX Workload monitor gathers a set of metrics from each of the instances running on an ESX server. The monitor the compares the highest values returned by the instances to the thresholds that you set. If the values collected from the instances exceed your thresholds, up.time issues an alert.

Performance Reporting and Graphing

Once up.time has collected metrics from an ESX system, what do you do with all of that information? Use up.time's reports and graphs to visualize the performance of both the ESX server and the instances that are running on that server.

Using the VMware Workload report, you can pinpoint which VMware instances are using the most system resources, or whether or not you are using a particular VMware ESX server to its optimal capacity. The report will also chart the workload of both the physical server and the VM guest instances.

VMware workload

If you regularly use the VMware VMotion utility, which enables you to move ESX instances from one server to another without any downtime or loss of data, then up.time's Instance Motion graph is an essential tool. The Instance Motion graph tracks where a VMware instance relocated with the VMware VMotion tool has been running on over a given time period.

VMotion graph

Licensing

A standard server license can be used to monitor an ESX server with any number of CPU sockets and virtual machines. Licensing for up.time's VMware monitoring features is flexible and is not based on the number of instances that you are monitoring. Instead, you can monitor an unlimited number of VMware instances.

VMware Performance Metrics

In addition to system performance metrics from the ESX platform, up.time also collects metrics for each instance running on an ESX server. These metrics show the consumption of the following physical resource by each ESX instance:

  • CPU
  • Memory
  • Network I/O
  • Disk I/O
  • % Ready
  • % Used
  • % Wait
  • Memory Balloon
  • Memory Balloon Target
  • Memory Overhead
  • Memory Swap In
  • Memory Swap Out
  • Memory Zero
  • Memory Swap Used
  • Memory Swap Target
  • Disk Total Latency
  • Disk Kernel Latency
  • Disk Device Latency
  • Disk Queue Latency
  • Disk Commands Aborted
  • Disk Commands Issued
  • Disk Bus Resets