Why gather performance data for a fault?
If the diagnostic logs do not help you determine the cause of a fault, you may need to use performance collection tools to gather further data for analysis.
Set up performance collection tools to gather data about faults that may occur.
Performance gathering tools
VMware recommends the following tools for gathering performance data:
esxtop
The esxtop tool provides performance statistics for the entire ESX/ESXi host. It provides details of network, storage, CPU, and memory load from the VMkernel perspective. It provides details on a VMkernel world basis.
To collect the data for a longer period, run esxtop in batch mode. Direct the output to a file to be reviewed after the fault.
To run the esxtop tool, run the command:
# esxtop –b –d <delay in seconds> [-n <iterations>] > output-perf-statistics-file.csv
Note:
- Make sure you have enough free space available on the location from where you are running the command and on the datastore where the output file saved. Also make sure there is no performance issue on the datastore where the output file is saved.
resxtop
Like esxtop, the resxtop tool provides performance statistics for a specified ESX host in the network. It provides the same performance information as esxtop and may be used either after deploying the VMware vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) virtual appliance or installing the VMware Command-Line Interface (vCLI).
resxtop is particularly helpful for ESX and ESXi deployments where an interactive shell login is unavailable.
To run the resxtop tool and collect batch performance data, log into the vMA or open the vCLI, and execute the command:
# resxtop [server] [vihost] [portnumber] [username] -b -d <delay in seconds> [-n <interations>] > output-perf-statistics-file.csv
vm-support -s
Use the vm-support command with the -s parameter to collect performance statistics, system configuration information, and logging. Submit the file generated by this command to VMware Support for further assistance, if required.
Performance Monitor (PERFMON.EXE)
Microsoft's Performance Monitor is a utility that comes with every Microsoft Windows NT-based Operating System. This utility can be used to monitor local and remote Microsoft Windows machines. It can log performance data and display data from logs or real-time data.
This utility is useful when reviewing data collected from the esxtop tool and for troubleshooting virtual machine unresponsiveness. When using Performance Monitor for virtual machine unresponsiveness, collect the data remotely from another Microsoft Windows machine so that the utility does not affect the data being gathered.
For more information about Performance Monitor on your specific version of Windows, refer to Microsoft support sites.
Other tools