Virtual Machines - VM Tools Report
XenServer Tools and VMware Tools provide high speed I/O for enhanced disk and network performance for virtual machines on Hypervisor. Needless to say, in the absence of these Tools, VM performance will significantly deteriorate! Administrators need to periodically review the VMs in order to identify those VMs that are installed with the XenServer/VMware Tools. In the large virtualized environments with thousands of the VMs installed, administrators might therefore find it difficult to manually track the VMs on which these Tools are installed; even if the VMs are installed with the required Tools, its hard to determine whether the latest version of the Tools is only installed. This is where the VM Tools report highly helps administrators!
This report quickly scans the entire virtualized environment and provide the graphical/tabulated results using which administrators can figure out the following:
Total number of VMs available on a Hypervisor
Number of VMs that are installed with the XenServer/VMware Tools
Number of VMs that are not installed with the Tools
Number of VMs on which the latest version of the Tools is installed
Number of VMs on which the Tools are not running and are out of date
In order to generate the VM Tools report, do the following:
Follow the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain Specific Reports -> Virtualization -> Virtual Machines -> VM Tools.
In the page that appears, select a criterion for analysis from the Report For list box. Using this report, you can analyze the status of VM Tools on one/more independent virtualized components, or those that are part of a segment, service, or a zone. This way, you can assess the impact of the VM Tools installed on the virtual components of a particular service/segment/zone, and accordingly take decisions. The options provided by the Report For list box are discussed hereunder:
Component: Select this option to choose the component(s) from across all the managed components in the environment. For instance, for a report on the VM Tools hosted on all the managed Citrix Xenserver hosts in the environment, select Citrix Xenserver from the Component Type list, select Component from the Report For list, and then select all the virtual hosts listed in the Components list. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the
button next to the Components list. The COMPONENTS pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones for which the report is to be generated. You can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the component name to search for in this text box, and click the icon next to it.Service: Select this option if the components for which a report is to be generated are involved in the delivery of a business service. Then, select a Service.
Segment: Choose this option if the virtual hosts to be evaluated are part of a segment. Then, pick a Segment for analysis.
Zone: Pick this option for a report on the performance of virtual components that are included in a zone. Then, choose a Zone. A Zone drop-down list will then appear, from which you would have to select the zone to which the components of interest to you belong. An Include Subzone flag also appears. Indicate whether the components present within the sub-zones of the chosen zone are also to be to be considered for report generation, by setting the Include Subzone flag to Yes.
In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.
Note
The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the {EG_INSTALL_DIR}\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background Save - PDF. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.
Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report. The report that appears, will contain three sections - SUMMARY that points you to the total number of VMs available in the Hypervisor, the VMs on which the Tools are installed and the VMs that are not installed with the Tools.
The VM XENSERVER TOOLS BY STATUS section of the report will list out the number of VMs on which the latest version of the Tools is installed, number of VMs on which outdated version of the Tools is installed and the number of VMs that are not installed with the Tools.
Clicking on the XenServer Tools up to date will further provide you with the details of the VMs on which the latest version of the Tools is installed, the Hypervisor in which the VM is configured and the version of the Tools. Likewise, you can view the details of the VMs that are installed with the outdated version of the Tools by clicking the XenServer Tools not up to date.
Further drilling down the XenServer Tools not installed reveals the details of the VMs that are not installed with the Tools and the Hypervisor in which those VMs are configured
The VM XENSERVER TOOLS BY VERSION section of the report will provide you the VM details based on the build versions of the Tools installed in those VMs. This section also reveals whether the VMs are updated with latest version of the Tools by showing the IS UPTO DATE? flag adjacent to the column listing the Hypervisors.
If you have chosen VMware vSphere VDI or VMware vSphere ESX as the Component Type, the VM Tools report will contain SUMMARY and VMS VMWARE TOOLS BY STATUS sections. Further drilling down the statistics provided in VMS VMWARE TOOLS BY STATUS section of the report, you can identify the details of each VM and the Hypervisors on which the VMs are configured.