VMCluster: Collection is abnormally long

Products

• CA Automic Sysload

Issue/Introduction

By default, the collector is configured to retrieve historical/consolidated data stored in vCenter DB. In the current case, it seems that the request in the DB is slow. 

However, the agent also has the capability to do a real-time request. 

Note, in case of a real-time (RT) request : 

• Additional traffic can appear between the ESX host and vCenter (ESX host being directly requested) 
• Metrics about Data store are no longer available.

It also exists a mix mode (datastore metrics retrieved in the vCenter DB and the rest directly from Hosts).

Cause

Cause type: Configuration
Root Cause: vCenter DB performances are not optimum when having a lot of Virtual Machines accross the multiple Hosts.
The Sysload Agent must be configured in Real Time mode in this case.

Environment

OS: All Windows

Resolution

First, launch the script sldvspherecollect.bat and redirect its output to a file, to find out how much time it takes to collect.

IE:
     Total time      = 907.741s

Since the script takes 907seconds, you need to:
a) Reduce the list of Cluster / Hosts to collect until it takes less than 300 seconds (default agent collection period)
b) Increase the DataPeriodSecs and DataHistoryPeriodMin accordingly, on the above case:
[General] 
DataPeriodSecs=1200 
DataHistoryPeriodMin=40


Configure the agent in Real Time mode :

1. 
   

   Edit the sldvmcluster.ini file (for each collector)

2. 
   

   Add the "-forceCompleterReaTime 1" parameter as the following:  [VCENTER] PerlScriptExtraParam=--config "C:\Program Files\sysload\sldvmcluster\sldvmcluster_template_1\sldvcenterenv.txt" -protocol https -forceCompleteRealTime 1 

3. 
   

   Modify the parameters DataPeriodSecs & DataHistoryPeriodMin in the "...\sldvmcluster\sldvmcluster_template_1\sldvspherecollect.ini" 
   [General] 
   DataPeriodSecs=600 
   DataHistoryPeriodMin=20 

4. 
   

   Restart the agent

5. 
   

   Check that the parameter has been propagated to all collector ini files in the Pool. 

Configure the agent in Mixed Mode:

1. 
   

   Edit the sldvmcluster.ini file (for one collector) :

2. 
   

   Add the "-queryfromrt 1" parameter as the following: [VCENTER] PerlScriptExtraParam=--config "C:\Program Files\sysload\sldvmcluster\sldvmcluster_template_1\sldvcenterenv.txt" -protocol https -queryfromrt 1

3. 
   

   Modify the parameters DataPeriodSecs & DataHistoryPeriodMin in the "...\sldvmcluster\sldvmcluster_template_1\sldvspherecollect.ini" 
   [General] 
   DataPeriodSecs=600 
   DataHistoryPeriodMin=20  

4. 
   

   Restart the agent

5. 
   

   Check that the parameter have been propagated to all collector ini files. 

NB: This mode should be less efficient than the previous one