Network Connectivity Lost Alarms does not trigger when using Network Name as the alarm argument

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You have an alarm configured to detect "Network Connectivity Lost" event on one or more PortGroups

• When a "Network Connectivity Lost" Event is generated, the Alarm does not trigger 

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

The Alarm does not trigger because the Event Spec does not contain the "Network Name" argument. This is an expected behavior due to the way Events are generated.

A sample event is given below for reference:

--> },
--> vm = (vim.event.VmEventArgument) null,
--> ds = (vim.event.DatastoreEventArgument) null,
--> net = (vim.event.NetworkEventArgument) null,
--> dvs = (vim.event.DvsEventArgument) null,
--> fullFormattedMessage = "Lost network connectivity on virtual switch "vSwitch1". Physical NIC vmnic8 is down. Affected portgroups:"iDRAC Network", "VM Network", "vMotion".",
--> changeTag = <unset>,
--> eventTypeId = "esx.problem.net.connectivity.lost",
--> severity = "",
--> message = "",
--> arguments = (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) [
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "1",
--> value = ""vSwitch1""
--> },
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "2",
--> value = "vmnic8"
--> },
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "3",
--> value = ""iDRAC Network", "VM Network", "vMotion""

Resolution

To trigger this alarm correctly, you should modify the Alarm to use "Argument 3" instead of net.name (Network Name)



Note: Argument 1 maps to the vSwitch or vDS, Argument 2 maps to the vmnic and Argument 3 maps to the PortGroup(s)

Also note that  the Port Group Name  or vSwitch name has to begin with a double-quote, for e.g. "iDRAC, for it to match the Event Spec generated.