To determine the overall I/O activity across all the storage adapters/disks on the ESX server host, use the EsxStorageUsageTest.

This page depicts the default parameters that need to be configured for the EsxStorageUsageTest.

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

• 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. These monitoring methodologies and their corresponding configuration requirements have been discussed hereunder:

  • Monitoring using the web services interface of the ESX server: Starting with ESX server 3.0, a VMware ESX server offers a web service interface using which the eG agent collects metrics from an ESX server. The VMware VI SDK is used by the agent to implement the web services interface. To use this interface for monitoring, this test should be configured with an ESX USER who has "Read-only" privileges to the target ESX server. By default, the root user is authorized to execute the test. However, it is preferable that you create a new user on the target ESX host and assign the "Read-only" role to him/her. The steps for achieving this have been elaborately discussed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

    ESX servers terminate user sessions based on timeout periods. The default timeout period is 30 mins. When you stop an agent, sessions currently in use by the agent will remain open for this timeout period until ESX times out the session. If the agent is restarted within the timeout period, it will open a new set of sessions. If you want the eG agent to close already existing sessions before it opens new sessions, then you would have to configure all the tests with the credentials of an ESX user with permissions to View and stop sessions (prior to vSphere 4.1, this was called View and Terminate Sessions permission). The steps for achieving this have been elaborately discussed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

  • Monitoring using the vCenter in the target environment: By default, the eG agent connects to each ESX server and monitors it. While this approach scales well, it requires additional configuration for each server being monitored. For example, separate user accounts may need to be created on each server for read-only access to performance metrics. While monitoring large virtualized installations however, the agents can be optionally configured to monitor an ESX server using the metrics already collected by the different vCenter installations that may be in use in the environment. In this case therefore, the ESX USER and ESX PASSWORD that you specify should be that of an Administrator or Virtual Machine Administrator in vCenter. However, if, owing to security constraints, you prefer not to use the credentials of such users, then, you can create a special role in vCenter that allows users Read-only access to vCenter, and assign this role to a local/domain user. Refer to the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document for the corresponding procedure.

    vCenter servers terminate user sessions based on timeout periods. The default timeout period is 30 mins. When you stop an agent, sessions currently in use by the agent will remain open for this timeout period until vCenter times out the session. If the agent is restarted within the timeout period, it will open a new set of sessions. If you want the eG agent to close already existing sessions on vCenter before it opens new sessions, then, instead of using the credentials of a 'Read-only' user, you can optionally configure tests executed via vCenter with the credentials of a vCenter user with permissions to View and stop sessions (prior to vCenter 4.1, this was called View and Terminate Sessions permission). To know how to grant this permission to a local/domain user to vCenter, refer to Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

    When the eG agent is started/restarted, it first attempts to connect to the vCenter server and terminate all existing sessions for the user whose credentials have been provided for the tests. This is done to ensure that unnecessary sessions do not remain established in the vCenter server for the session timeout period. Ideally, you should create a separate user account with the required credentials and use this for the test configurations. If you provide the credentials for an existing user for the test configuration, when the eG agent starts/restarts, it will close all existing sessions for this user (including sessions you may have opened using the Virtual Infrastructure client). Hence, in this case, you may notice that your VI client sessions are terminated when the eG agent starts/restarts.

• 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 ESX server via HTTPS by default.

  Like the ESX sever, the vCenter is also SSL-enabled by default. If you have chosen to use the vCenter for monitoring, then you have to set the SSL flag to Yes.

• 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.

• 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.

• Once the above value is provided, click on the Update button to register the changes made.