Understanding of IBMVM & IBMVM_rest probes

Products

• NIMSOFT PROBES
• DX Infrastructure Management

Issue/Introduction

We have a requirement to collect performance data for IBM LPARs blades and AIX servers, for which we found could be achieved using IBMVM probe and the IBMVM_rest probe. What would be the better approach for doing this, also what is the difference between both of the probes. Which probe could be preferred to achieve the solution?

Environment

Release : 8.51

Component : UIM - IBMVM

Resolution

ibmvm:
The IBM Virtualization Monitoring (ibmvm) probe monitors the health and performance of the IBM virtualization enabled systems. The probe monitors the managed systems connected to Hardware Management Console (HMC) interfaces. 

The ibmvm (IBM Virtualization Monitoring) probe monitors the managed IBM Power systems connected to HMC interfaces. The probe monitors the key performance metrics for IBM virtualization enabled systems, including managed systems, VIOS, and LPARs.

Please refer to the following link for more details as well:

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/ibmvm-ibm-virtualization-monitoring/ibmvm-theory-of-operations.html

Examine the metrics that can be collected here:
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/ibmvm-ibm-virtualization-monitoring/ibmvm-metrics.html

You can monitor the following component entities on the Managed System:

- CPU
- CPU Pool
- Disk
- Memory
- Network
- Storage Pool

You can monitor the following component entities on the virtual I/O server (VIOs) and virtual machines (VMs):

- CPU
- Disk
- Memory
- Network

ibmvm_rest:
The ibmvm_rest (IBM PowerVM Monitoring using REST) probe monitors the managed IBM Power Systems connected to IBM Hardware Management Console (HMC) interfaces. The probe monitors key performance metrics for IBM virtualization enabled systems, including managed systems, VIOS, and LPARs. The probe communicates with the HMC using the HMC REST API.

LPARs-> The ibmvm_rest probe collects a lot more detailed and useful performance information on LPARs.

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/ibmvm-rest-ibm-powervm-monitoring-using-rest/ibmvm-rest-metrics.html

AIX server monitoring
AIX servers can be monitored using the cdm probe but it requires a robot to be installed. For a list of metrics that can be monitored navigate to this url and search on 'AIX.'

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/ca-unified-infrastructure-management-probes/GA/alphabetical-probe-articles/cdm-cpu-disk-memory-performance-monitoring/cdm-metrics.html#concept.dita_9819c04e26a4992039ca2c7b67a3cf163abc1454_QoSMetrics