vRealize Operations Manager – Monitor Management Packs for Availability and Notification

If you are using multiple vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS) – Management Packs like Horizon, VSAN, NSX and vCenter and want to monitor their availability of the adapter/POD in terms of whether they are “Collecting Data” and get notified via email when the collection of data stops due to unknown reasons. Then go ahead and read further.

If you don’t setup the monitoring one doesn’t get notified until someone logins to the vROPS Manager and see the adapter status physically.

Adapter Status:

Collection State/Status:

To achieve the above its a 3 steps process. You will have to create the following:

• Custom Symptom Definition
• Custom Alert Definition
• Custom Notification

Symptom Definitions

We will create four custom Symptom Definition (SD) for Horizon Adapter, Horizon POD as it collects data, vCenter instances and VSAN Adapter. Following are the SD combined:

• Horizon Adapter Instance
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Symptom Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Under the Base Object Type Select – View Adapter Instance
  • Under Metrics Select vRealize Operations Generated – Availability
  • Enter a Symptom Definition Name – SD_Horizon_Adapter_Avail
  • is – Critical
  • metric – is less than
  • Numeric Value – 1
  • Under Advance
    • Wait Cycle – 3
    • Cancel Cycle – 3
    • Recommended – The wait/cancel cycle of 3 means that in case of any failure user will be notified after 15 minutes (3 cycles x default 5 minutes data collection interval)

• vCenter Adapter – vCenter

  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Symptom Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Under the Base Object Type Select – vCenter Server
  • Under Metrics Select vRealize Operations Generated – Availability
  • Enter a Symptom Definition Name – SD_vCenter_Adapter_Avail
  • is – Critical
  • metric – is less than
  • Numeric Value – 1
  • Under Advance
    • Wait Cycle – 3
    • Cancel Cycle – 3
    • Recommended – The wait/cancel cycle of 3 means that in case of any failure user will be notified after 15 minutes (3 cycles x default 5 minutes data collection interval)

• View POD

  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Symptom Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Under the Base Object Type Select – View POD
  • Under Metrics Select vRealize Operations Generated – Availability
  • Enter a Symptom Definition Name – SD_View_POD_Avail
  • is – Critical
  • metric – is less than
  • Numeric Value – 1
  • Under Advance
    • Wait Cycle – 3
    • Cancel Cycle – 3
    • Recommended – The wait/cancel cycle of 3 means that in case of any failure user will be notified after 15 minutes (3 cycles x default 5 minutes data collection interval)

• VSAN Adapter Instance
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Symptom Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Under the Base Object Type Select – VSAN Adapter Instance
  • Under Metrics Select vRealize Operations Generated – Availability
  • Enter a Symptom Definition Name – SD_VSAN_Adapter_Avail
  • is – Critical
  • metric – is less than
  • Numeric Value – 1
  • Under Advance
    • Wait Cycle – 3
    • Cancel Cycle – 3
    • Recommended – The wait/cancel cycle of 3 means that in case of any failure user will be notified after 15 minutes (3 cycles x default 5 minutes data collection interval)

Alert Definitions

We will create four custom Alert Definition (AD) for Horizon Adapter, Horizon POD as it collects data, vCenter instances and VSAN Adapter. Following are the AD combined:

• Horizon Adapter Instance
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Alert Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – AD_Horizon_Adapter
  • Under the Base Object Type Select – View Adapter Instance
  • Under the Alert Impact
    • Impact – Health
    • Criticality – Symptom Based
    • Alert Type and Subtype – Virtualization/Hypervisor: Availability
    • Wait Cycle – 1
    • Cancel Cycle – 1
  • Under Add Symptom Definitions
    • Defined on – Self
    • Symptom Definition Type – Metric /Property
    • In the search box enter the previously created Symptom Definition – SD_Horizon_Adapter_Avail
  • Under Add Recommendations – Search and Select “Check if the resources are available. If it isn’t restart it. If it is available check the network connectivity between the remote checks and the resource”

• vCenter Adapter Instance
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Alert Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – AD_vCenter_Adapter
  • Under the Base Object Type Select –  vCenter Server
  • Under the Alert Impact
    • Impact – Health
    • Criticality – Symptom Based
    • Alert Type and Subtype – Virtualization/Hypervisor: Availability
    • Wait Cycle – 1
    • Cancel Cycle – 1
  • Under Add Symptom Definitions
    • Defined on – Self
    • Symptom Definition Type – Metric /Property
    • In the search box enter the previously created Symptom Definition – SD_vCenter_Adapter_Avail
  • Under Add Recommendations – Search and Select “Check if the resources are available. If it isn’t restart it. If it is available check the network connectivity between the remote checks and the resource”

• View POD
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Alert Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – AD_View_PODS
  • Under the Base Object Type Select –  View Pod
  • Under the Alert Impact
    • Impact – Health
    • Criticality – Symptom Based
    • Alert Type and Subtype – Virtualization/Hypervisor: Availability
    • Wait Cycle – 1
    • Cancel Cycle – 1
  • Under Add Symptom Definitions
    • Defined on – Self
    • Symptom Definition Type – Metric /Property
    • In the search box enter the previously created Symptom Definition – SD_View_PODS_Avail
  • Under Add Recommendations – Search and Select “Check if the resources are available. If it isn’t restart it. If it is available check the network connectivity between the remote checks and the resource”

• VSAN Adapter Instance
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Alert Definitions
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – AD_VSAN_Adapter
  • Under the Base Object Type Select –  vSAN Adapter Instance
  • Under the Alert Impact
    • Impact – Health
    • Criticality – Symptom Based
    • Alert Type and Subtype – Virtualization/Hypervisor: Availability
    • Wait Cycle – 1
    • Cancel Cycle – 1
  • Under Add Symptom Definitions
    • Defined on – Self
    • Symptom Definition Type – Metric /Property
    • In the search box enter the previously created Symptom Definition – SD_VSAN_Adapter_Avail
  • Under Add Recommendations – Search and Select “Check if the resources are available. If it isn’t restart it. If it is available check the network connectivity between the remote checks and the resource”

Notifications

We will create four Notification Rules for Horizon Adapter, Horizon POD as it collects data, vCenter instances and VSAN Adapter. Following are the Rules for Email Alerts combined:

• Rule – Horizon Adapter Instance is down
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Notification Settings
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – _Horizon_Adapter is down
  • Under Method Select – Standard Email Plugin
  • Instance – SMTP (previous configured)
  • Enter Recipients – Email Address
  • Notification Trigger – Alert Definition
  • Add the previously created _AD_Horizon_Adapter

• Rule – vCenter Adapter Instance is down
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Notification Settings
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – _vCenter_Adapter is down
  • Under Method Select – Standard Email Plugin
  • Instance – SMTP (previous configured)
  • Enter Recipients – Email Address
  • Notification Trigger – Alert Definition
  • Add the previously created _AD_vCenter_Adapter

• Rule – View POD is down
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Notification Settings
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – _View_POD is down
  • Under Method Select – Standard Email Plugin
  • Instance – SMTP (previous configured)
  • Enter Recipients – Email Address
  • Notification Trigger – Alert Definition
  • Add the previously created _AD_View_POD

• Rule – VSAN Adapter is down
  • Open the vROPS Manager and navigate to Alerts – Notification Settings
  • Click on the +
  • Enter a Name – _VSAN_Adapter is down
  • Under Method Select – Standard Email Plugin
  • Instance – SMTP (previous configured)
  • Enter Recipients – Email Address
  • Notification Trigger – Alert Definition
  • Add the previously created _AD_VSAN_Adapter

I hope you will find this post useful and will help you improvise on monitoring/alerting of your vROPS Management Packs. A big thanks to Gagik Manukyan in demonstrating the ability to configure this in our internal setup.

Thanks,
Aresh Sarkari