Configuration of VmgTimeSyncTest

This test reports the time difference between the reference clock and that of the target environment, and thus helps assess the quality of time seen by the windows VM. With the help of this test, you can also easily determine whether the reference time changed recently.

The default parameters associated with this test are as follows:

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

• In the HOST text box, the host name of the server for which the test is to be configured has to be specified.

• The port number to which the server is listening is to be provided in the PORT text box. By default, this is NULL.

• In order to enable the test to extract the desired metrics from a target ESX server, you need to configure the test with an ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD. The user credentials to be passed here depend upon the mechanism used by the eG agent for collecting performance statistics from the ESX server and its VMs.

• Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• By default, the ESX server is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the vCenter server via HTTPS by default.

• By default, in most virtualized environments, the vSphere/ESX server and vCenter listen on port 80 (if not SSL-enabled) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled). This implies that while monitoring an SSL-enabled vSphere/ESX server directly, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 443 of the vSphere/ESX server to pull out metrics, and while monitoring a non-SSL-enabled server, the eG agent connects to port 80. Similarly, while monitoring a vSphere/ESX server via an SSL-enabled vCenter, the eG agent connects to port 443 of vCenter to pull out the metrics, and while monitoring via a non-SSL-enabled vCenter, the eG agent connects to port 80 of vCenter. Accordingly, the WEBPORT parameter is set to 80 or 443 depending upon the status of the SSL flag. In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, against the WEBPORT parameter, you can specify the exact port at which the vSphere/ESX server or vCenter in your environment listens so that the eG agent communicates with that port.

• By default, this test communicates with every VM remotely and extracts “inside view” metrics. Therefore, by default, the INSIDE VIEW USING flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows). Typically, to establish this remote connection with Windows VMs in particular, eG Enterprise requires that the eG agent be configured with domain administrator privileges. In high-security environments, where the IT staff might have reservations about exposing the credentials of their domain administrators, this approach to extracting “inside view” metrics might not be preferred. In such environments therefore, eG Enterprise provides administrators the option to deploy a piece of software called the eG VM Agent on every Windows VM; this VM agent allows the eG agent on the service console to collect “inside view” metrics from the Windows VMs without domain administrator rights.To ensure that the “inside view” of Windows VMs is obtained using the eG VM Agent, set the INSIDE VIEW USING flag to eG VM Agent (Windows). Once this is done, you can set the DOMAIN, ADMIN USER, and ADMIN PASSWORD parameters to none. Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• While monitoring a VMware ESX server, the REPORT BY USER flag is set to NO by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the ESX server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, while monitoring VMware Desktop environments, this flag is set to YES by default; this implies that in case of VDI servers, by default, the guests will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS.

• If you have chosen to use the vCenter for monitoring an ESX server and have configured the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD accordingly, then, provide the IP address of the vCenter host in the VIRTUAL CENTER text box.

  On the other hand, if you want the eG agent to behave in the default manner - i.e., communicate with each ESX server for metrics - then set the VIRTUAL CENTER parameter to ‘none’. In this case, the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD parameters should be configured with the credentials of a user who has at least ‘Read-only’ privileges to the target ESX server.

• Administrators of some high security VMware environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to ignore such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the IGNORE VMS parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your IGNORE VMS specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on an ESX host by default.

  Note:

  While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the IGNORE VMS text box.

• By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the IGNORE WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

• Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing the configuration for specific servers, a "*" beside the text box corresponding to the parameter signifies that these values have to be manually configured by the user. The parameter values that require to be configured will typically be prefixed with a "$" or contain a series of "*". A value of "none" in the parameter value indicates that the corresponding parameter value can be changed if required.