Guide to VAIM Discovery

Products

• CA Infrastructure Management
• CA Performance Management - Usage and Administration
• DX NetOps

Issue/Introduction

How does VAIM discovery work in CA Performance Management?

Environment

Any version of Dx NetOps Performance Management

Resolution

Initial Discovery of Environment

1. Discover the SysEDGE running the VAIM (VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Solaris Zones, IBM LPAR)
2. Virtual Server monitoring profile is discovered since the SysEDGE device is a Server.
   
   1. Will try and determine what VAIM is supported.
   2. If Hyper-V, Zones or LPAR, those metric families are discovered and the process ends here.
   3. If VMware, the VMware vCenter is discovered as a component and added to All VMware vCenters.
3. After the VMware vCenter component is added to All VMware vCenters, discovery of additional metric families in the VMware, the VMware ESX Host and the VMware Virtual Machine monitoring profiles.
   
   1. VMware monitoring profile will discover all clusters, data centers, host disks, resource pools, virtual disks and create components for each.
   2. VMware ESX Host monitoring profile will discover all ESX hosts on the vCenter and create devices based on following rules:
      
      1. Pingable if there is no IP address, or has an IP address but no other device is already discovered with that IP address.
         
         1. Device Type of the device will be: ESX Host
      2. SNMP if there is an IP address and a device is already discovered with that IP address)
         
         1. Device Type of the device will be: Server, ESX Host
   3. VMware Virtual Machine monitoring profile will discover all virtual machines on the vCenter and create devices based on the following rules:
      
      1. Pingable if there is no IP address, or has an IP address but no other device is already discovered with that IP address.
         
         1. Device Type of the device will be: Virtual Machine
      2. SNMP if there is an IP address and a device is already discovered with that IP address)
         
         1. Device Type of the device will be: Server, Virtual Machine
   4. After a VM is discovered, it discovers the VMware Virtual Machine Aggregate Metrics metric family which is the VM statistics we collect.  They are displayed in the VMware Virtual Machine tab on the VM device in the NetOps Portal.
   5. After a ESX is discovered, it discovers the VMware Virtual Host Aggregate Metrics metric family which is the ESX statistics we collect.  They are displayed in the VMware ESX Host tab on the ESX device in the NetOps Portal.

Post discovery change detection

After the ESX and VM are discovered, the Data Aggregator will run change detection based on the following schedules to see if any VM/ESX Host have been added/deleted in the VAIM:

• The OOTB VMware Virtual Machine monitoring profile has 15 minute change detection.
• The OOTB VMware ESX Host monitoring profile has 24 hour change detection.

Rest Endpoints

1. http://DAHOST:8581/rest/virtualmachines (optionally, /ID)
   
   
   1. Will list all virtual machines in the system, or specific one when used with /ID.
      NOTE: possible there are too many VMs in the system and this call will not run, or take some time to return.
   2. In the rest output, some key fields are:
      
      1. SourceAgentInfo - SourceAgentIDs will be the DA item ID of the SysEDGE running the VAIM monitoring this virtual machin
         
         1. Alternate, vsql> select long_value from v_list_attribute_instance where item_id = VM_ID and attr_qname like '%SourceAgentInfo.SourceAgentIDs';
      2. PowerStatus - Indicate whether the VM is powered on or not (r2.5+)
         
         1. Alternate, vsql> select long_value from v_attribute_instance where item_id = VM_ID and attr_qname like '%VirtualMachine.PowerStatus';
      3. ParentHostItemID - DA item ID of the ESX Host the VM is running on
         
         1. Alternate, vsql> select long_value from v_attribute_instance where item_id = VM_ID and attr_qname like '%VirtualMachine.ParentHostItemID';
      4. Device - CalculatedContactStatus will use PowerStatus and Contact Status of SysEDGE to determine contact status
         
         1. Alternate, none.  Value only saved in DA memory.
2. http://DAHOST:8581/rest/devices/ID
   
   1. Provide the ParentHostItemID from VM to get the ESX Host info like Name.
   2. Provide the SourceAgentIDs from VM to get the SysEDGE VAIM monitoring the VM
3. Currently there is no rest end point for ESX Hosts.  You will need to use vsql to look at the database:
   
   1. SourceAgentInfo - SourceAgentIDs - to get the ID of the SysEDGE VAIM monitoring the ESX Host
      vsql> select long_value from v_list_attribute_instance where item_id = ESXHostID and attr_qname = '%SourceAgentInfo.SourceAgentIDs' .