Configuring VMware VI monitoring

After installing the Monitoring Agent for VMware VI, you must create the first instance, and manually start the agent so that the agent can collect data of the VMware Virtual Infrastructure that is being monitored.

Before you begin

  • Review the hardware and software prerequisites.
  • Create a user ID in your VMware Virtual Infrastructure. The agent uses this user ID to connect to the VMware vCenter for monitoring the VMware Virtual Infrastructure. Ensure that you have the System.View and System.Read privileges on all the vCenters and ESX servers that are being monitored. For information about how to create the user ID, see the VMware documentation for managing users, groups, permissions, and roles.
  • Determine whether the vCenter is configured for SSL communication. If it is configured, then you must configure the VMware VI agent to use SSL for communicating with the vCenter.
    • To determine whether the vCenter uses SSL for communication, use the https://vCenterIPaddress URL to access the vCenter. If you can access the vCenter, then it indicates that the vCenter uses SSL to communicate over the network.
    • To configure the VMware VI agent to use SSL for communicating with the vCenter, complete the steps that are described in Enabling SSL communication with VMware VI data sources.
  • Decide the number of agent instances that you need to monitor your VMware Virtual Infrastructure. For information about sizing the agent instances according to your monitoring environment, see Sizing and planning the VMware VI agent deployment.

About this task

The VMware VI agent is a multiple instance agent. Unlike a single instance agent, for which you can configure the agent to monitor and collect data for only one monitored application, the VMware VI agent can have multiple configured instances that connect to multiple vCenter servers and remotely monitor your VMware Virtual Infrastructure.

The configuration parameters define the VMware VI data sources that are monitored and define a connection to either the VMware vCenter, vCenter Server Appliance, or to an individual VMware ESX server. To know the supported versions of these applications, see the Software Product Compatibility Reports for the VMware VI agent.

The product version and the agent version often differ. The directions here are for the most current release of this agent. For information about how to check the version of an agent in your environment, see Agent version command. For detailed information about the agent version list and what's new for each version, see the Change history.

You must manually configure the agent to view data for all the agent attributes.
  • To configure the agent on Windows operating systems, you can use the IBM Performance Management window or the silent response file.
  • To configure the agent on Linux® operating systems, you can run the script and respond to prompts, or use the silent response file.