Difference between 'Static Monitor' and 'Auto Monitor' in IM GUI and how 'Templates' interacts with the vmware probe

Products

• DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)
• CA Unified Infrastructure Management On-Premise (Nimsoft / UIM)
• CA Unified Infrastructure Management SaaS (Nimsoft / UIM)

Issue/Introduction

When you apply a template, there are 2 similar operations actionable in IM GUI which results in different interactions with the probe.

The KB explains how that works.

1. Drag a template and drop over 'Auto Configurations' tree.

It is very important to understand...

• How IM GUI applies the template to the probe
• Differences between Auto Monitors and Static Monitors
• Advantages and disadvantages of each

Environment

• UIM - any version
• vmware probe, any version
• Infrastructure Manager (IM)

Resolution

Example:

• One template which has one metric for a VM
• Target resource is an ESXi host which has 2 VMs
  
  

When you drag the template and drop over 'Auto Configurations' tree, monitors are configured as Auto Monitor.

Take a look at the structure in probe configuration file:

Advantage

• The monitor is automatically applied on all the objects that are found in the target.
• In this example, the monitor is also automatically applied on a VM that was newly added.
• The change on via 'Auto Configurations' tree is a mass update to any ACTIVE monitors.

Disadvantage

• Note that in this example, it is not possible to have specific VMs excluded from the template.
• When you drag the template and drop over Resource tree, monitors are configured as Static Monitors.

Advantage

• This approach above in the Resource tree might be more flexible than Auto Monitors.
• In this example, static monitor is the right choice if you want to apply the template ONLY ON specific VMs.
• After applying the template, you can still manually remove monitors that you don't need.

Disadvantage

• Probe configuration file becomes larger, which causes the probe to require extra computer resources to parse.
• Probe requires extra computer resources compared to Auto Monitors.

Additional Information

This KB is common and applicable for other probes in which 'Auto Configurations' feature is supported in the IM GUI.

This KB is NOT applicable for the Admin Console GUI which is the PREFERRED user interface for all STORAGE probes.

Please take some time to review the KB listed below as well:

Vmware Auto monitors are superior to Static monitors