vROps monitoring shows high memory utilization alerts for VMware NSX for vSphere Controller

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• vROps manager showing high memory utilization alerts for the VMware NSX for vSphere Controller.
• VMware NSX for vSphere Manager logs don't show any utilization logs, free -m output for controllers shows sufficient available memory.
• Login to debug shell and check free-m "available" to get the correct value, alternatively we can also check /proc/meminfo file for MemAvailable to get the same value.

Environment

VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.x.

Cause

Due to known issue(Memory Usage % Metric may show much higher than the guest OS utilization in vRealize Operations Manager 6.7 and later versions) for VMware tools on version before 10.3.2, there are certain scenarios where the guest metrics is not collected by installed VMware tools.

Resolution

• In order to check the correct memory utilization in an NSX controller, in outputs "available memory" is supposed to be checked instead of "free memory".
• From an NSX perspective, since the Controller is a management VM, it is shipped with the NSX manager VMware tool version when is deployed.
• To resolve the above VMware tool issue, upgrade to VMware NSX for vSphere version 6.4.6, as version 6.4.6 comes with VMware tool version 10.3.10.