Incorrect Snapshot Age Metric Causing False Alerts in VMware Aria Operations

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

Virtual machines (VMs) in the environment might display an incorrect snapshot age metric in Aria operations, triggering false alerts.
For Example: A VM may show a snapshot age of xx days even though there are no snapshots on that VM. This issue is typically due to a synchronization problem between different metrics during the collection cycles of the VMware vCenter adapter.

Environment

VMware Aria Operations 8.x

Cause

Below are the two metrics that captures snapshot age data. This issue is observed when these two metrics do not update synchronously:

Disk Space|<datastore>|Snapshot|snapshot<id>|Number of Days Old
Disk Space|Snapshot|Age (Days)

The first metric updates during one data collection cycle, followed by the second metric in the next cycle. If the adapter restarts between these updates, the Disk Space|Snapshot|Age (Days) metric can become stuck, showing incorrect data and causing false alerts.

 

Resolution

This is a known issue and we are working towards a fix in the upcoming version. 

However, The workaround is to reset the snapshot Age metric and below is the steps:

1. Edit Configuration File:

Add the parameter snapshotAgeThresholdInMinutes=0 in the file /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/plugins/inbound/vmwarevi_adapter3/conf/vmware.properties on the collector node running the vCenter adapter.

2. Restart the collector service to apply the changes:

systemctl restart collector.service

3.Create New Snapshot:

Take a new snapshot on the affected VM

4. Verify Metric Update:

Wait for the Disk Space|Snapshot|Age (Days) property to update to "0".

This might take couple of collection cycles. 

5. Delete Snapshot and Confirm Metric Reset:

Delete the newly created snapshot.
Confirm that the Disk Space|Snapshot|Age (Days) property shows "-1".

This may take several collection cycles to update.

6. Revert vmware.properties:

Comment out (add a "#" symbol before) the line snapshotAgeThresholdInMinutes=0 in the vmware.properties file.

7. Restart Collector Service Again:

systemctl restart collector.service

Important:
Ensure metrics are in a stable state before performing the final restart. This will help avoid the timing issue causing the metric to become stuck.

Additional Information

This article addresses a timing issue causing the Disk Space|Snapshot|Age (Days) metric to become stuck.
The provided resolution offers a workaround until the official fix is available