Creating an alarm for specific virtual machines

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to create an alarm for specific virtual machines.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x

Resolution

To create an alarm for specific virtual machines:

1. Log in to the vSphere Client as an Administrator.
2. Disable the alarm:
   
   
   1. Navigate to Home > Inventory > VMs and Templates and select your vCenter Server.
   2. Click the Alarms tab.
   3. Click Definitions.
   4. Right-click the virtual machine CPU usage entry and click Edit Settings.
   5. Deselect Enable this alarm.
   6. Click OK.
      
      
3. Right-click your datacenter and choose New Folder.
4. Give the new folder a descriptive name (such as Virtual Machine CPU monitoring).
5. Click the Alarms tab.
6. Click Definitions.
7. In the Definitions pane, right-click and chose New Alarm.
8. Enter in an alarm name and description.
9. Click the Triggers tab.
10. Click Add.
11. Modify the Trigger Type, Condition, Warning, Condition Length, Alert, Condition Length as needed.
    
    Note: It may appear as the fields cannot be modified. Click under each field and a dropdown arrow appears.
    
    
12. Check the Reporting and Actions tabs and make any changes as necessary.
13. Click OK.
14. Drag the virtual machines that you want to monitor CPU usage to the Virtual Machine CPU monitoring folder.
    
    Verify the new alarm has been applied to the folder Virtual Machine CPU monitoring alarm tab and that the virtual machines to be monitored are in that folder. Any virtual machine that is not in the folder will not have its CPU usage monitored.
    
    

    Note: Virtual machines can only be in one folder, so there are limits to how far you can customize alarms using this method.