Virtualization Administration

Virtualization Administration Page

This page is where you configure automatic monitoring of your virtual environments. Only users with the SuperAdmin access level may configure virtualization monitoring settings.

To make changes to your virtualization monitoring settings, go to the main menu and select Administration > Modules > Virtualization.

At the top of the page are buttons to view complete lists of guests (see, "View Guests" further down) and to set the default applied threshold check for any hosts and datastores automatically added to Netreo (see, "Edit Default Thresholds" further down).

Use the Virtualization Settings panel to configure how your virtual environments will be monitored. The remaining panels simply display discovered virtual resources and provide links to edit those resources individually, as explained below.

Virtualization Settings

The available settings are described below. Select Save after making changes.

FORCE SYNCHRONIZATION WITH VIRTUALIZATION MANAGEMENT CONSOLE
When enabled, this setting forces Netreo to match the device name, IP address, and other settings with those discovered via a virtualization management console (see below). This will disable the editing of those fields using Netreo's device administration pages. Defaults to ON.

AUTOMATICALLY ADD ACTIVE GUESTS
When enabled, discovered active guests will automatically be added to Netreo for monitoring. Defaults to ON.

AUTOMATICALLY ADD ACTIVE HOSTS
When enabled, discovered active hosts will automatically be added to Netreo for monitoring. Defaults to ON.

AUTOMATIC GUESTS POLLING AND MONITORING
Enable or disable guest's polling and monitoring automatically, based on resource status learned via a virtualization management console (see below). Defaults to ON.

AUTOMATICALLY FILTER GUESTS
Regular expression field. Allows you to automatically exclude VM guests from being added to Netreo for management using a regular expression containing the relevant guest names. No guest names are filtered by default.

Hosts and Datastores Settings

This panel displays lists of discovered hosts and datastores.

HOSTS
The HOSTS list displays the name of each discovered host and its current number of guests. Select the hostname to open the Virtualization Dashboard for that host. Select the edit icon to open the main device administration page for that host. Select the HOSTS column header to sort the list. A search box above the list functions as a real-time filter for the list.

DATASTORES
The DATASTORES list displays the name of each discovered datastore. Select the datastore name to open a dashboard displaying information about that datastore. Select the edit icon to open a page where the threshold options for that datastore can be managed. Select the DATASTORES column header to sort the list. A search box above the list functions as a real-time filter for the list.

List of Virtualization Management Consoles

This panel displays a list of your currently added virtualization consoles and their IP addresses.

You can add as many additional management consoles as needed (VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V only). In order to discover VM guests, datastores, and clusters from a hypervisor host, it MUST be added as a management console in the Virtualization Administration page and NOT through any other device addition process. If a hypervisor is added using any device addition process other than those from within the Virtualization administration page, Netreo will not dynamically discover and add the guests, clusters, or datastore objects

To add a new console to the list, click the Add button. To view the Device Dashboard for a particular console, select its name from the Virtualization Management Console list. Select a console's edit icon to open the administration view of the Device Dashboard for that console. Select a column header to sort the list by that element. A search box above the list functions as a real-time filter for the list.

Virtualization Guests List Page

Selecting View Guests at the top of the Virtualization Administration page opens the Virtualization Guests List page. This page lists all active, pending, inactive and unmonitored guests. The differences between the various guest types are outlined below.

Active Guests
Active guests are guests that have been learned from a management console, added to Netreo, are powered on, and are currently being monitored.

Pending Guests
Pending guests are guests that have been learned from a management console, but are currently still in the process of being added. (You will rarely see guests in this list.)

Inactive Guests
Inactive guests are guests that have been learned from a management console, but that the  management console indicates are currently inactive (typically due to being powered off). Whether a guest is active or inactive is determined by the management console, not Netreo.

Unmonitored Guests
Unmonitored Guests are guests who have been learned from a management console, but are not currently being monitored in Netreo (likely because the AUTOMATICALLY ADD ACTIVE GUESTS setting described above has been set to OFF). Guests that have had monitoring turned off for them in their device administration will also show up here.

Selecting the edit guest icon for a guest opens its main device administration page, where various settings can be configured.

Virtualization Default Threshold Administration Page

Selecting Edit Virtualization Default Thresholds at the top of the Virtualization Administration page opens the Virtualization Default Threshold Administration page. Here you can add and set the default threshold checks to be applied to newly added hosts and datastores.

Host CPU and memory utilization threshold checks should typically be added through the use of device templates but can be set up here if desired. Although, adding all desired threshold checks to hosts using device templates with the appropriate device type is the preferred method. Default datastore host I/O latency and drive free space threshold check settings, however, must be set up here--as datastores are not tied to a device and thus device templates cannot be used for them.

Add New Default Threshold Page

Selecting Add Default Virtualization Threshold opens a page that allows you to add and configure a new default threshold check for newly discovered virtual resources.

Best Practices

Netreo's preferred method to identify VMware virtual machines is through a UUID. This ensures the most accurate association of metrics to a given device—even through IP and name changes. Netreo recommends that you select to use persistent UUIDs when moving VMs in your virtual environment. Please see the following documentation provided by VMware on maintaining UUIDs during VM migrations.

https://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_move_uuid_moving_virtual_machines.html

If persistent UUIDs are not configured on the customer systems beforehand, Netreo will try to match the name of a known device to the name attribute of a resource learned through the customer's management console.