How to monitor vCenter Server

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

How to configure the vCenter so that it can be monitored in Smarts.

Environment

Smarts - 10.1.x

Resolution

The IP Availability Manager provides the initial device topology to the Server Manager (ESM domain). Then, the Server Manager uses the vCenter API to discover the VMware virtual elements in real time and associate them with their respective host systems. Server Manager uses the vCenter API to connect to VirtualCenter to discover the VMware infrastructure. In addition, ESM is also capable of using SNMP to discover the virtual environment. SNMP discovery is disabled by default and must only be used in networks without a VirtualCenter, or when the credentials for the VirtualCenter are not available.

NOTE:

1). The credentials supplied to ESM must have read access to the complete Virtual Center database.

2). To create connections between a physical switch and an ESX server, Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) must be enabled on both the physical switch and the vSwitch (Standard vSwitch, Distributed vSwitch and Nexus 1000 vSwitch) installed on the ESX server. CDP must be running in both Listen and Advertize mode. If CDP is not enabled in both Listen and Advertize mode, then the connections between the physical switch and the ESX server will not be created. 

3). The ESX hostname must have an entry in DNS server mapping to ESX IP address.

All of the above information is documented here under the topic "VMware Management".