To start, I am going to add my VMware vCenter server, which will inventory my clusters, hosts, virtual machines, resource pools and datastores. I add in all the basic information including:
- Name
- Type
- Host Name or IP address
- Zone
I then enter the credentials to connect to the vCenter server and click Validate. After it has been validated, click the Add button.
Next we are going to add our Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager. Like before, we are going to add in the basic information and the credentials to authenticate. After our account has been validated, we are going to click the Add button.
Now I have both infrastructure providers showing under the Providers tab.
If I click on the Hosts tab, it shows my ESXi and RHEL host. I like to change the view to list mode so I get more detail, this can be done by clicking the button in the upper right had corner.
In order for us to gather information on the host, we want to make sure that we have the proper credentials in place. We are going to check the box next to our host, in my example below labesx02.home.virtlab.com, and then click Configuration and Edit Selected Hosts.
In the Credentials section, we are going to add the user account with privileged access to our host. I setup credentials for Default and Remote Login.
I do the same for my RHEL host; I enter the Credentials of my user account with privileged access.
If we double click on a host, it brings up a comprehensive list of all the information on the host. Below, we can see a summary of my ESXi host labesx02.home.virtlab.com. It provides us information on IP address, operating system, power state, devices, services, and advanced settings, to name a few.
For more detailed information, you can click any of the items. I am going to click on Services to get details on the 14 services that are running on my host.
After clicking on Services, it brings me to a complete list of the services running on my ESXi host. It provides the service name, display name, and a status on the service state.
If you click the Properties drop-down on the left hand Navigation panel, you can then select Capacity & Utilization which gives performance metrics. You can do hourly intervals for the past 12 hours and daily intervals for the past four weeks. Although it doesn't provide comprehensive information like vRealize Operations Manager, this gives a good general overview of the systems health.
The different drop-downs on the Navigation panel provide the following options:
- Properties
- Summary
- Devices
- Network
- Storage Adapters
- OS Information
- VMM Information
- Capacity & Utilization
- Timelines
- Relationships
- Cloud Infrastructure Provider
- Cluster
- Datastores
- VMs
- Templates
- Drift History
- Security
- Users
- Groups
- Patches
- Firewall Rules
- Configuration
- Packages
- Services
- Files
- Advanced Settings
If we select the Virtual Machines tab, it gives us the list of virtual machines and templates in the center panel. On the Navigation panel to the left, you will notice that it shows both providers in the tree with tree branches that include datacenters, resource pools, virtual machines, and templates.
If we scroll all the way down the window, it gives us performance information for the virtual machine over the past 30 days.
If you want to find out if the virtual machine is a candidate for right-sizing, click on Configuration and then Right-Size Recommendations.
ManageIQ provides you a general report showing the capacity ranges for CPU and memory; and the capacity that can be save by right-sizing your virtual machine. In my case, I can save 0 on processors; however I can save in-between 284 MB and 3764 MB of memory depending on the recommendation.
In my next ManageIQ post, we will look at setting up tags for virtual machines, setting up automation, and deploying virtual machines from ManageIQ.
