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Data Infrastructure Insights

Configuring the VMware VSphere data collector

Contributors netapp-alavoie dgracenetapp ostiguy
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The data collector for VMware vSphere collects VM guest and ESXi Host performance and configuration information and requires read-only privileges on all objects within vSphere. As of August 2024, the vSphere collector additionally brings in log messages from vSphere environments, and some VMware specific metrics. Please note that Data Infrastructure Insights can only retrieve VMware logs information from vSphere 8.0.1 or higher environments. Similarly, the Vendor Specific Metrics is only supported for vSphere 7+ environments. As such, you may want to disable the logs and/or Vendor Specific Metrics checkbox on a given collector if it is pointed at an older vSphere instance.

Terminology

Data Infrastructure Insights acquires the following inventory information from the VMware vSphere data collector. For each asset type acquired, the most common terminology used for the asset is shown. When viewing or troubleshooting this data collector, keep the following terminology in mind:

Vendor/Model Term Data Infrastructure Insights Term

Virtual disk

Disk

Host

Host

Virtual machine

Virtual machine

Data store

Data store

LUN

Volume

Fibre channel port

Port

These are common terminology mappings only and might not represent every case for this data collector.

Requirements

The following information is required to configure this data collector:

  • IP address of the Virtual Center server

  • Read-only username and password in Virtual Center

  • We require read only privileges on all objects within Virtual Center.

  • SDK access on the Virtual Center server – normally already setup.

  • Port requirements: http-80 https-443

  • Validate access:

    • Log into Virtual Center Client using above username and password

    • Verify SDK enabled: telnet <vc_ip> 443

Setup and connection

Field Description

Name

Unique name for the data collector

Acquisition unit

Name of acquisition unit

Configuration

Field Description

Virtual center IP Address

IP address of the Virtual Center

User name

User name used to access the Virtual Center

Password

Password used to access the Virtual Center

Advanced configuration

In the advanced configuration screen, check the VM Performance box to collect performance data. Inventory collection is enabled by default.
The following fields can be configured:

Field

Description

Inventory poll interval (min)

Default is 20

Filter VMs

Select CLUSTER, DATACENTER, or ESX HOST

Choose 'Exclude' or 'Include' to Specify a List

Create a filter list (CLUSTER, DATACENTER, and/or ESX_HOST)

Number of retries

Default is 3

Communication port

Default is 443

Filter Device List…​

This list must consist of exact string matches - if you intend to filter by ESX_HOST, you must build a comma delimited list of the exact "names" of your ESX hosts as reported in both Data Infrastructure Insights and vSphere. These "names" may be either IP addresses, simple hostnames, or fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) - this is determined by how these hosts were named when they were originally added to vSphere.

When filtering by CLUSTER, use the Data Infrastructure Insights-style cluster names as reported by CI on hypervisors - Data Infrastructure Insights prepends the vSphere cluster name with the vSphere datacenter name and a forward slash - "DC1/clusterA" is the cluster name Data Infrastructure Insights would report on a hypervisor in clusterA within data center DC1.

Performance poll interval (sec)

Default is 300

Mapping VMware tags to Data Infrastructure Insights annotations

The VMware data collector allows you to populate Data Infrastructure Insights annotations with tags configured on VMware. The annotations must be named exactly as the VMware tags. Data Infrastructure Insights will always populate same-named text-type annotations, and will make a "best attempt" to populate annotations of other types (number, boolean, etc). If your annotation is of a different type and the data collector fails to populate it, it may be necessary to remove the annotation and re-create it as a text type.

Note that VMware tags may be case-sensitive, while Data Infrastructure Insights tags are case-insensitive. So if you create an annotation named "OWNER" in Data Infrastructure Insights, and tags named "OWNER", "Owner", and "owner" in VMware, all of those variations of "owner" would map to Cloud Insight’s "OWNER" annotation.

Keep the following in mind:

  • Data Infrastructure Insights currently only auto-publishes support information for NetApp devices.

  • Since this support information is held in annotation form, you can query it or use it in dashboards.

  • If a user overwrites or empties the annotation value, the value is autofilled again when Data Infrastructure Insights updates annotations, which it does once a day.

Troubleshooting

Some things to try if you encounter problems with this data collector:

Inventory

Problem: Try this:

Error: Include list to filter VMs cannot be empty

If Include List is selected, please list valid DataCenter, Cluster, or Host names to filter VMs

Error: Failed to instantiate a connection to VirtualCenter at IP

Possible solutions:

* Verify credentials and IP address entered.
* Try to communicate with Virtual Center using VMware Infrastructure Client.
* Try to communicate with Virtual Center using Managed Object Browser (e.g MOB).

Error: VirtualCenter at IP has non-conform certificate that JVM requires

Possible solutions:

* Recommended: Re-generate certificate for Virtual Center by using stronger (e.g. 1024-bit) RSA key.
* Not Recommended: Modify the JVM java.security configuration to leverage the constraint jdk.certpath.disabledAlgorithms to allow 512-bit RSA key. See JDK 7 update 40 release notes.

I'm seeing the message:

"VMware Logs package is not supported on VMware below version 8.0.1"

Logs collection is not supported on VMware versions prior to 8.0.1. Upgrade your VI Center Infrastructure to version 8.0.1 or later if you wish to use the Logs Collections feature within Data Infrastructure Insights.

For more information, see this KB Article.

Additional information may be found from the Support page or in the Data Collector Support Matrix.