VM Details - AHV Test

This test monitors the amount of the physical server's resources that each guest managed by a Nutanix Prism Element is taking up. Using the metrics reported by this test, administrators can determine which virtual guest is taking up most CPU, which guest is generating the most network traffic, which guest is over-utilizing memory, and which guest is eroding disk space.

Target of the test : A Nutanix AHV server

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every VM on the Nutanix AHV server monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured.

Port

The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL

Prism Element IP

If the eG manager had discovered the target Nutanix AHV server by connecting to the Nutanix Prism Element, then the IP address of the Nutanix Prism Element server used for discovering this Nutanix AHV server would be automatically displayed against the Prism Element IP parameter; similarly, the Prism Element User and Prism Element Password text boxes will be automatically populated with the Prism Element user credentials, using which Nutanix AHV discovery was performed.

If this Nutanix AHV server has not been discovered using the Nutanix Prism Element, but you still want to monitor the Nutanix AHV server via the Prism Element, then select the IP address of the Prism Element server that you wish to use for monitoring the Nutanix AHV server from the Prism Element IP list. By default, this list is populated with the IP address of all Nutanix Prism Element hosts that were added to the eG Enterprise system at the time of discovery. Upon selection, the Prism Element user and Prism Element Password that were pre-configured for that Nutanix Prism Element will be automatically displayed against the respective text boxes.

On the other hand, if the IP address of the Prism Element server of interest to you is not available in the list, then, you can add the details of the Prism Element server on-the-fly, by selecting the Other option from the Prism Element IP list. This will invoke the MANAGER DISCOVERY - VIRTUAL PLATFORM SETTINGS page. Refer to the Configuring eG Enterprise to Monitor Nutanix AHV topic for details on how to use this page.

Prism Element User, Prism Element Password and Confirm Password

If the eG manager had discovered the target Nutanix AHV server by connecting to the Nutanix Prism Element, then the IP address of the Nutanix Prism Element server used for discovering this Nutanix AHV server would be automatically displayed against thePrism Element IP parameter; similarly, the Prism Element User and Prism Element Password text boxes will be automatically populated with the Prism Element user credentials, using which Nutanix AHV discovery was performed.

If this Nutanix AHV server has not been discovered using the Nutanix Prism Element, but you still want to monitor the Nutanix AHV server via the Prism Element, then select the IP address of the Prism Element server that you wish to use for monitoring the Nutanix AHV server from the Prism Element IP list. By default, this list is populated with the IP address of all Nutanix Prism Element hosts that were added to the eG Enterprise system at the time of discovery. Upon selection, the Prism Element User and Prism Element Password that were pre-configured for that Prism Element server will be automatically displayed against the respective text boxes.

On the other hand, if the IP address of the Prism Element server of interest to you is not available in the list, then, you can add the details of the Prism Element server on-the-fly, by selecting the Other option from the Prism Element IP list. This will invoke the MANAGER DISCOVERY - VIRTUAL PLATFORM SETTINGS page. Refer to the Configuring eG Enterprise to Monitor Nutanix AHV topic for details on how to use this page.

SSL

By default, the Nutanix Prism Element server is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the Prism Element server via HTTPS by default.

WebPort

By default, the Nutanix Prism Element server listens on port 9440. This implies that while monitoring a Nutanix AHV server via the Prism Element server, the eG agent connects to port 9440.

Exclude VMs

Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your Exclude VMs specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs.

Ignore VMs Inside View

Administrators of some high security Hyper-V environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your Ignore VMs Inside View specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on a Hyper-V host by default.

Note:

While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the Ignore VMs Inside View text box.

Ignore WINNT

By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the Ignore WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

Inside View Using

By default, this test obtains the “inside view” of VMs using the eG VM Agent. Accordingly, the Inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent by default. The eG VM Agent is a piece of software, which should be installed on every VM on a hypervisor. Every time the eG agent runs this test, it uses the eG VM Agent to pull relevant 'inside view' metrics from each VM. Once the metrics are collected, the eG agent then communicates with each VM agent and pulls these metrics, without requiring administrator privileges. Refer to Configuring the Remote Agent to Obtain the Inside View of VMs for more details on the eG VM Agent.

Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, and Confirm Password

By default, these parameters are set to none. This is because, by default, the eG agent collects 'inside view' metrics using the eG VM agent on each VM. Domain administrator privileges need not be granted to the eG agent if it uses this default approach to obtain the 'inside view' of Windows VMs.

Report By User

While monitoring a Nutanix AHV server, the Report By Userflag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the AHV server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, while monitoring AHV desktop environments, this flag is set to Yes by default; this implies that in case of VDI servers, by default, the guests will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS. In other words, in VDI environments, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename.

Report Powered OS

This flag becomes relevant only if thereport by user flagis set to ‘Yes’.

If the Report Powered OS flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such guests will be identified by their virtualmachine name and not by the username_on_virtualmachinename. On the other hand, if the Report Powered OS flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those VMs to which no users are logged in currently.      

Report Powered ON

You can set the Report Powered ON status to Yes, so that the test reports an additional measure, Is VM powered on?, revealing whether a guest OS is currently running or not. The default status of this flag is set to Yes for a Nutanix AHV server. However, the default status of this flag is No in the case of Nutanix AHV VDI server; this is because, in such environments, the virtual desktops will be in the powered-off state most of the time.

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

VM power-on state:

Indicates the current state of the virtual machine.

 

The table below displays the States that can be reported by this measure, and their numeric equivalents:

State Value
Off 0
On 1
Suspended 2

Note:

By default, this measure reports one of the States listed in the table above. The graph of this measure however will represent the VM status using the numeric equivalents - ‘0’ to ‘7’.

Is controller VM

Indicates whether/not this VM is the controller VM

Number

The Nutanix CVM is what runs the Nutanix software and serves all of the I/O operations for the hypervisor and all VMs running on that host. Prism Element service runs on every CVM with an elected Prism Element Leader which is responsible for handling HTTP requests.

If this measure reports the value 0, it indicates that the VM is not a controller VM, whereas the value 1 indicates that it is a controller VM.

Current sessions

Indicates the number of sessions that are currently active on the guest.

Number

The value of this measure reveals the guest OS that is currently busy.

The detailed diagnosis of this metric lists the VM name, user of that particular VM, and operating system of VM.

CPU reserved

Indicates the amount of CPU power reserved for this VM.

GHz

 

Virtual CPU utilization

Indicates the percentage of virtual CPU resources used by this VM.

Percent

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM is using the allocated CPU resources excessively.

Physical CPU utilization

Indicates the percentage of physical CPU that is used by the VM.

Percent

Ideally, a VM should use only a small percentage of the physical CPU resources of the Nutanix AHV host. High CPU usage by a VM could cause other VMs to contend for limited CPU resources, thereby adversely impacting the performance of the other VMs and the applications executing on them. 

Virtual CPUs

Indicates the number of virtual CPUs allocated to this VM.

Number

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM has been allocated the maximum number of virtual CPUs.

Disk capacity

Indicates the total disk capacity available to this VM.

GB

 

Used space

Indicates the amount of disk space used by this VM.

GB

 

Disk space utilization

Indicates the percentage of disk space used by this VM.

Percent

Comparing the value of this measure across VMs will reveal the VM that is consuming too much disk space.

Virtual disks

Indicates the number of virtual disks in the VM.

Number

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to view the details of the virtual disks.

Memory reserved capacity

Indicates the amount of memory reserved for this VM.

GB

 

Memory capacity

Indicates the total amount of memory available to this VM.

GB

 

Memory usage

Indicates the amount of allocated memory capacity currently being used by this VM.

GB

 

Free memory

Indicates the amount of free memory available to this VM.

GB

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM is running out of free memory.

Memory utilization

Indicates the percentage of allocated memory capacity currently being utilized by this VM.

Percent

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM is using memory excessively.

Percent free memory

Indicates the percentage of free memory available in the VM.

Percent

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM is running short of free memory.

Network adapters

Indicates the number of network adapters available to this VM.

Number

 

Data received

Indicates the amount of data received by this VM.

GB

 

Data transmitted

Indicates the amount of data transmitted by this VM.

GB

 

Total IOPS

Indicates the number of I/O operations per second (IOPS) on this VM.

Number

This measure is a good indicator of the level of I/O activity on each VM. Compare the value of this measure to know which VM is experiencing an I/O overload.

Read IOPS

Indicates the number of read I/O operations per second on this VM.

Number

 

If the value of the Total IOPS measure is high for a VM, then compare the value of these measures for that VM to know where the bottleneck lies - when reading or writing?

Write IOPS

Indicates the number of write I/O operations per second on this VM.

Number

Total IO latency

Indicates the average I/O latency of this VM.

Seconds

Compare the value of this measure across VMs to know which VM is the slowest in processing I/O requests.

Read IO latency

Indicates the average read I/O latency for this VM.

Seconds

 

If the value of the Total IO latency measure is high for a VM, then compare the value of these measures for that VM to know where the bottleneck lies - when reading or writing?

Write IO latency

Indicates the average write I/O latency for this VM.

Seconds

Total IO bandwidth

Indicates the bandwidth consumed when processing I/O requests to this VM.

KB/Sec

Compare the value of this measure to know which VM is consuming maximum I/O bandwidth.

Read I/O bandwidth

Indicates the amount of bandwidth consumed by this VM when processing read I/O requests.

KB/Sec

If the value of the Total IO bandwidth measure is unusually high for a VM, then compare the value of these measures for that VM to know when maximum bandwidth was consumed - when reading or writing?

Write I/O bandwidth

Indicates the amount of bandwidth consumed by this VM when processing write I/O requests.

KB/Sec