Tag Archive for alarm

Configure HA Related alarms and monitor a HA Cluster

February 4, 2013 Objective 4 Business Continuity No comments

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Monitoring a cluster

  • Highlight the cluster
  • Select Summary
  • You will see the following page

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  • Click Advanced Runtime. This tells you the current state of your cluster including the slot information and host information

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  • Click on Cluster Operational Status to see informational and warning messages associated with your cluster

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  • Click Cluster Status and tab through the below options

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Configuring Alarms

You may setup custom alerts of your own to monitor the health of your HA cluster. However, VMware provides a number of default alerts for you described below. These alarms may be updated to take custom actions. To access these settings, connect to the vCenter server using the vSphere client:

  1. Enter the Host and Clusters view (Ctrl + Shift + H)
  2. Highlight the vCenter Server
  3. Click on the Alarms tab
  4. Select the Definitions view
  5. Select one of the below described HA default alarms
  6. Right click the alarm and select Edit Settings
  7. Click the Actions tab

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Default System Actions

  1. Send a Notification email
  2. Send a Notification trap
  3. Run a command
  4. Power on VM
  5. Power off VM
  6. Suspend VM
  7. Reset VM
  8. Migrate VM
  9. Reboot Guest VM
  10. Shutdown Guest VM

To Configure a Sender Email Account for the vCenter Server

  1. Enter the Server Settings dialog (Ctrl + Shift + I)
  2. Click on Mail
  3. Enter an SMTP Server
  4. Enter a Sender Account
  5. Note. Additional settings will be required to allow vCenter to use a pre-defined account to send emails. Check with your third party email server documentation when setting up this account.

To Configure SNMP

  1. Enter the Server Settings dialog (Ctrl + Shift + I)
  2. Click on SNMP
  3. Enter up to four different Receiver URLs and Community Strings for your SNMP environment

Create DRS and DPM Alarms

February 1, 2013 Objective 3 Tuning and Optimisation No comments

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DRS Alarms

  • Right click the Datacenter or Cluster and Select Alarm > Add New Alarm
  • Select Clusters

DRSALARM

  • Click Triggers  > Add

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  • You can click Advanced and tune the alarm even more

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  • Click Reporting

DRSREP

  • Click Actions and choose how to be notified

DRSACTION

DPM Alarms

You can use event-based alarms in vCenter Server to monitor vSphere DPM.
The most serious potential error you face when using vSphere DPM is the failure of a host to exit standby mode when its capacity is needed by the DRS cluster. You can monitor for instances when this error occurs by using the preconfigured Exit Standby Error alarm in vCenter Server. If vSphere DPM cannot bring a host out of standby mode (vCenter Server event DrsExitStandbyModeFailedEvent), you can configure this alarm to send an alert email to the administrator or to send notification using an SNMP trap. By default, this alarm is cleared after vCenter Server is able to successfully connect to that host.

To monitor vSphere DPM activity, you can also create alarms for the following vCenter Server events.

  • Entering Standby mode (about to power off host) DrsEnteringStandbyModeEvent
  • Successfully entered Standby mode (host power off succeeded) DrsEnteredStandbyModeEvent
  • Exiting Standby mode (about to power on the host) DrsExitingStandbyModeEvent
  • Successfully exited Standby mode (power on succeeded) DrsExitedStandbyModeEvent

Alarm setup Instructions

  • Click the Datacenter or Cluster and Select Alarms
  • Click Definitions
  • Double click on Exit Standby Error
  • Select Hosts for Alarm Type

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  • Select Triggers

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  • Select Reporting

DRSREP

  • Select Actions

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  • Right click the Datacenter or Cluster and Select Alarm > Add New Alarm
  • Select Datastore Clusters

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  • Select Triggers

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  • Select Reporting

DRSREP

  • Select Action

DRSACTION

Great Alarm Link from the Communities

http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/12145-1-35516/vSphere%20Alarms%20v2.xlsx

Configure Datastore alarms

January 15, 2013 Objective 1 Storage No comments

Configure Datastore alarms

There are five pre-configured datastore alarms that ship with vSphere 5

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To create a Datastore alarm

  • Right click on the vCenter icon in the vClient and select Alarm > Add Alarm
  • Click the Drop Down on Alarm Type and Select Datastores
  • You have 2 choices to monitor – Select your preference
  • Monitor for specific conditions or state, for example, CPU usgae, power state
  • Monitor for specific events occurring on this object, for example, VM powered on
  • Tick Enable this alarm

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  • Click Triggers
  • Click Add
  • Under Trigger Type, you can see several triggers associated with this alarm
  • Choose Datastore Disk Usage

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  • Click the Drop Down on Condition and select Is above or Is below
  • Click the Drop Down on Warning and select 75% or change as required
  • Click the Drop Down on Condition length and set as required. Sometimes it will not let you set this if it is not relevant
  • Click the Drop Down on Warning and select 90% or change as required
  • At the bottom of the screen there are 2 options. Choose the one you require
  • Trigger if any of the conditions are satisfied
  • Trigger if all of the conditions are satisfied
  • Click the Reporting tab
  • Under Range there is an option Repeat triggered alarm when the condition exceeds this range

A 0 value triggers and clears the alarm at the threshold point you configured. A non-zero value triggers the alarm only after the condition reaches an additional percentage above or below the threshold point.
Condition threshold + Reporting Tolerance = trigger alarmTolerance values ensure you do not transition alarm states based on false changes in a condition

  • Under Frequency there is an option Repeat triggered alarms every

The frequency sets the time period during which a triggered alarm is not reported again. When the time period has elapsed, the alarm will report again if the condition or state is still true

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  • Click the Actions tab
  • Click Add
  • Click the Drop Down box on Action and Select Send a notification email

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  • If you chose Send a notification email or Send a notification trap as the alarm action, make sure the notification settings are configured for vCenter Server
  • Double click Configuration and enter an email address
  • In the next boxes are the alarm status triggers. Set a frequency for sending an email each time the triggers occur

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Click OK to Finish