Smarts ESM: Inconsistent GuestOSNotRunning notifications from Smarts Server Manager
Article ID: 331943
Updated On:
Products
VMware Smart Assurance
Issue/Introduction
Symptoms:
In a specific customer environment, there was recurring examples of GuestOSNotRunning notifications coming from the Smarts Server Manager. Checking the actual virtual machine in vSphere showed inconsistent results. Sometimes an actual problem with VMTools would be found, but usually there would be no issue whatsoever despite the active notification.
In a specific customer environment, there was recurring examples of GuestOSNotRunning notifications coming from the Smarts Server Manager. Checking the actual virtual machine in vSphere showed inconsistent results. Sometimes an actual problem with VMTools would be found, but usually there would be no issue whatsoever despite the active notification.
Environment
VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS
Cause
There is a setting on the VMware Virtual Center Polling group called SuspendVMToolsPolling. The default value for this setting is FALSE.
The value set to TRUE makes vCenter polling faster. However, the VMTools status gets updated only during discovery.
In this scenario, it was set to TRUE in order to improve the performance of the polling. However, this causes very inconsistent results with the behavior of VMTools related notifications since the status of these problems is only updated during discovery.
The value set to TRUE makes vCenter polling faster. However, the VMTools status gets updated only during discovery.
In this scenario, it was set to TRUE in order to improve the performance of the polling. However, this causes very inconsistent results with the behavior of VMTools related notifications since the status of these problems is only updated during discovery.
Resolution
SuspendVMToolsPolling really needs to be set to FALSE in order for these notifications to work properly. If at all possible, this option should remain as FALSE.
If it must be left at TRUE to handle the performance load, one of the following should be considered:
1) Change the value of DisableVMToolsEvents to TRUE as the data is inconsistent anyway.
2) Split the environment into multiple ESM domains to better handle the load.
3) Increase the hardware CPU and memory to the ESM domain to allow more processing to take place.
If it must be left at TRUE to handle the performance load, one of the following should be considered:
1) Change the value of DisableVMToolsEvents to TRUE as the data is inconsistent anyway.
2) Split the environment into multiple ESM domains to better handle the load.
3) Increase the hardware CPU and memory to the ESM domain to allow more processing to take place.
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