Managing VM managers

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VM managers are pieces of software that create, manage, and monitor virtual machines. You configure connections to VM managers so that License Metric Tool can gather data that is required to calculate utilization of license metrics in virtual environments.

Collecting information from VM managers

Resources that are available to virtual machines are dynamically allocated based on current needs. When a virtual machine is not performing processor-intensive tasks, processor cores that are allocated to that machine are assigned to other virtual machines that need them to handle their workload. Because of these dynamics, License Metric Tool cannot scan virtual machines to collect information about processor type and the number of available cores.

To collect this information, License Metric Tool needs access to VM managers that control resources that are available to virtual machines. With such access, License Metric Tool can check the number of cores on the physical computer that hosts the virtual machines and see the allocation and usage of these resources.

Virtualizations for which access to VM managers is required

For information about x86 virtualization types for which you must define connections to VM managers, see: Virtualization types that require VM manager connections.

Lack of information from VM managers

Configure connections to VM managers within 24 hours after you add virtual machines to your infrastructure. Otherwise, License Metric Tool is not able to retrieve information about the virtualization hierarchy and physical processors. Thus, it is not able to properly calculate subcapacity values. In such a case, License Metric Tool applies default subcapacity counting on virtual machines. It might cause that license metric utilization is over-counted. For more information, see: Default subcapacity counting.

When you configure connections to VM managers later on, the reported subcapacity values are lower than or equal to the values that were reported when the connections were missing. However, peaks that resulted from missing connections to VM managers remain on the reports that are generated for the period when the peaks occurred.

Note: IBM accepts audit reports that contain subcapacity values calculated based on the default subcapacity counting instead of considering the client to be ineligible for subcapacity or liable for full capacity.

VM Manager Tool

To collect data from VM managers, License Metric Tool uses the VM Manager Tool. The tool connects to VM managers and gathers data about their capacity, focusing on processors, their type, and usage. The data is then imported to License Metric Tool and utilization of license metrics is calculated. For more information, see: VM Manager Tool.

Approaches to managing VM managers in License Metric Tool

You can choose between two approaches to managing VM managers: basic (local or central VM Manager Tool) or advanced (distributed or disconnected VM Manager Tool). You can also combine these two approaches. The choice depends on the specifics of your environment. For more information, see: VM Manager Tool deployment types and flow of data.