How can we monitor and track VMs that are in a powered-off state for an extended duration using Aria Operations.

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

Super Metric to calculate the duration (in days) that a server remains powered off in VMware Aria Operations.

 

Important Notice

Creating a Super Metric in Aria Operations is a customized solution that falls outside the scope of standard Global Support (GS) services. To successfully implement a Super Metric, collaboration with the VMware by Broadcom PSO team is required. Please reach out to your designated support channels to engage the PSO team for assistance with creating Super Metrics.

Environment

Aria Operations 8.18.X

Resolution

Follow steps below for creating super metric :

Step 1: Go to Administration > Configuration > Super Metrics . Select add to create a new super metric

Step 2: Start with a meaningful name for the super metric and description. You may also assign a unit from the available drop-down list, if required. (available only from v8.1)

Step 3: Create Formula – where you can add expressions which constitute super metrics. In this example, as we need just a constant value, please type in the number as in the screenshot below.

Other options available in the page are:

• Preview: Shows the values of a super metric against any object without needing to save and apply.
• Legacy: This mode switches to the template to create a super metric formula without the suggestive text as it used to be in v7.0 or older.

Step 4 : Add the object(s) to which the super metric needs to be applied. In this case, we will use to “vSphere World” as we are looking at viewing licenses of the entire environment.

Step 5 : The last step of creating super metric is to apply to relevant policy or policies

Once the super metric is enabled, it will take one or two collection cycles ( 5-10 minutes) to start seeing the super metric for the object. For the assigned object (vSphere World in this case), you will see the super metrics under All Metrics – Super Metric – see screenshot below:

To Manage, use the Formula 

{‌THIS: ‌System|Powered ON} == 1 ? 0 : {‌THIS: ‌Super Metrics|Minutes Powered Off}+5

Additional Information

While creating a Super Metric, you might run into an error as "cannot convert aggregated result to number ". To resolve this issue, please reference the KB article (https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/335252/vmware-aria-operations-super-metric-data.html).