[VMC on AWS] Handling different vCenter Alarms in VMware Cloud on AWS

Products

• VMware Cloud on AWS

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information about the handling of different vCenter Alarms observed in VMC on AWS.

Resolution

1)Virtual Machine (VM) Consolidation Needed status :

Cause: This could happen if a snapshot file exists and is not recognized by Snapshot Manager.
Solution: Consolidate the snapshots
Go to VM > Snapshot>Consolidation >Consolidate Snapshots.

Note: Before consolidating have a complete backup of the Virtual Machine.

Reference Link: Consolidating/Committing snapshots in VMware ESXi

2) Root Disk Exhaustion on vCenter : 
It is a warning alert that is observed whenever the Disk space reaches its maximum capacity during any of the operations which are expected to last for some time.
This alert is cosmetic during such cases and thus can be safely ignored.
However, if the Disk Space usage is expected to be high(i.e >80%) all the time, kindly reach out to VMware Cloud on AWS Technical Chat Support or File a Service Request using the following document .

 

3)vSphere HA virtual machine Monitoring error :
This alarm is triggered when vSphere HA cannot reset the virtual machine.


To clear the alarm, disable and enable VM monitoring by performing the steps below:

1.     Disable VM monitoring.

2.     Acknowledge and reset the alarm to green. See Acknowledge Triggered Alarms.

3.     Enable VM monitoring. See Enable VM Monitoring.

Reference Links :
vSphere HA virtual machine monitoring error alarm

4) vSAN Disk Balance :  
Cause: This alert is observed when the disk usage in the witness is 0.

 Solution :

This is a known cosmetic issue in VMware vSAN and can be safely ignored.

 To avoid this issue, disable the vCenter alarm for disk balance health check using the below steps:

1.     Navigate to vCenter > Monitor > Issues > Alarm Definition.

2.     Disable the vSAN Health Alarm:
"vSAN Disk Balance".

3. Avoid disabling it on any cluster that is reaching 70 % of space usage. Disk rebalance algorithm has been
optimized in 6.5 U2 and higher version and are highly recommended. 

Reference Link: vSAN Health Service - Cluster health - vSAN disk balance

5) Errors occurred on the disk of a vSAN host : 

 The alarm is triggered by the following event: esx.problem.vob.vsan.lsom.diskerror: Virtual SAN devices encounter a permanent error when devices are not readable or writeable. 

6) VMware vAPI endpoint Service Health alarm: 
This alarm is triggered when old endpoint entries are observed in the lookup service.

Cause :
When vAPI Endpoint service is re-configuring itself and an inappropriately handled exception occurs, it enters a state where a broken spring bean is saved, every subsequent reconfiguration fails and the service reports yellow status at that point.


Workaround: Restart the API Endpoint service to clear the faulty configuration state.
Reference Link: vAPI endpoint status changes to yellow in vCenter Server

8)vSphere Health detected new issues in your environment:  
This alarm is observed when the current status of the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) is disabled. Online health checks are not available if CEIP is disabled.


Resolution: There is no negative impact on vCenter.
This alarm can be disabled in the vCenter :
vCenter > Configure > Alarm Definitions > DISABLE or ignore the alarm

Reference Link: Understanding vSphere Health