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7 Posts
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158727
October 6th, 2011 13:00
HowTo Generate Alarms Per ESX Report?
Hello all,
I am using vFoglight v6.1 pro for monitoring my VMware Lab Manager environment.
It's unnecessary to mention I am getting tons of alerts from multiple types.
As part of my effort to reduce vFoglight amount of alerts, I disabled lots of alerts under Administration --> Rules & Admin --> Manage Rules.
I left only alerts referring to my ESX memory|swap|cpu which gives me more visibility of my environment status.
The thing is I am having a problem generating a statistics report that will give me exact information on how much alertsI have on each one of my ESX hosts per type.
I need an easy way to show more memory or cpu required and prove increase of resources actually solved the problem.
This has to be done via vfoglight reporting level.
I will be happy to get some assistance from each and every one of you if you know vfoglights internals.
Thank you very much,
Nissim.
aaron newsome
5 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 17:00
Here are some steps to try:
Navigate to Homes, Alarms
In the upper right of the Alarms Dashboard, set the time range you're interested in. For example "7d" for 7 days.
At the right of the Alarms table in the lower half of the Alarms Dashboard, click "Alarm Filter"
In the "Origin" field on the filter popup, type in "VMW ESX" (this will filter the alarms for most ESX related alarms)
The results of all ESX alarms for the last 7 days will be displayed, use the Error Instances tab to see the breakdown of how many alarms per host as well as the health history of those hosts over the selected time range
To export the alarms to Excel, use the Customizer button and select Export (it's the last option when you click the customizer, see attached screen shot)
aaron newsome
5 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 15:00
Hi nissimp. Have you tried running an "Event Analysis" report? This report should include all of your requirements. This is a canned report and doesn't require any customization. Just schedule it and let it run every week, every day or whatever your timeschedule needs to be. You can have the PDF delivered to your inbox so you don't even need to login to Foglight to see the report.
aaron newsome
5 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 16:00
Hi nissimp. The report template you want to use is called "Event Analysis - Any Resources". This report allows you to select the "type" of object you want to report on. The type of object you're looking for is called "ESX Hosts"
When you set the options for the report, choose "ESX Hosts" for the Topoloy Object input.
I've attached a screenshot so you can see what this looks like.
nissimp
7 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 16:00
Hi Aaron,
I just did that but the "Event Analysis Host" report provided information per VM and I would like to get this information per ESX hosts.
I would also like to have statistics for eash alert type on any of my ESX hosts...
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Nissim.
nissimp
7 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 17:00
Hi Aaron,
I followed your instructions and succeeded generating the report per ESX.
I am most interested in knowing the alarm dashboard and customize it to my needs.
Can you point me to a nice howto and share more info ...?
Anyway, I would like to thank you for your prompt help.
Nissim.
sundling
73 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 17:00
Some additional help on the way:
It´s unclear to me if you want reports showing utilization etc per ESX or VM? In both cases there are different out of the box reports available and you can create your own reports as well.
Please define more what your requirements are for the report please
/Mattias
aaron newsome
5 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 17:00
Regarding the "statistics" for each alert type on each host, this would take a little more work to do in a report form but it's very easy to do with the Alarms dashboard by setting a filter. The Alarms dashboard has tabs to break down the "error instances", per host, etc. The flitered results can also be exported to Excel, CSV file, PDF, etc. If you're familiar with Pivot tables in Excel, you'll be able to quickly outdo Foglight's statistical capability by exporting the alarm filter results to Excel.
If you're not interested in exporting to Excel, it'll take may take a little bit of exploring in Foglight to get what you're looking for. I don't know off the top of my head, what report elements would be needed to get the stats you're looking for.
nissimp
7 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 18:00
Hi Aaron,
Another question ...
How can i easily use the capacity planning tool to generate nice report that will show the amount of resources needed to fullfill the all lab requirements + 30% future growth based on foglight history ???
As you can understand, I am short of resources but I have hard time wrapping it up nicely in a nice pdf.
Many Thanks,
Nissim.
nissimp
7 Posts
0
October 6th, 2011 18:00
Hi Aaron,
Do you know by any chance if there is an easy way to split alarm "instance_id" in to two columns (e.g. esxname (VMWESX...)) so we easily filter by ESX hostname under excel pivot?
Do you know by any change how can alarm data can be automatically retrieved in to excel file using cli (if available)?
Can you point me to a relevant link etc...?
Many Thanks,
Nissim Penias.
nissimp
7 Posts
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October 6th, 2011 18:00
Thanks Matias, I will have a look at the tutorial .
aaron.newsome
2 Posts
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October 6th, 2011 21:00
Regarding splitting the instance id for better pivot tables, I'm not sure what the best solution here is. I think the best solution would be for the "Host" column in the alarms table to be populated with the ESX host name. That would make it easy. There might be some way to create an alarm table that does populate the host column but that's way beyond my know how level.
Regarding the capcity planning report, there are some nice reports today that show growth rates, and date of resource exhaustion and this is based on what physical resources you have today and what your usage has been in the past.
What you're asking for is to be able to plan when you run out of resources, based on a 30% growth rate. The capacity planning today doesn't seem to handle that use case in the current version. Look for the next version, 6.6 to have much better planning capacity tools. If you're vFoglight maintenance is current, 6.6 should be a no-cost upgrade for you.
Thanks, Aaron
nissimp
7 Posts
0
October 10th, 2011 08:00
Hi Aaron,
I created a scheduled job generating the Event Analysis report hourly but the thing is I see on some alarm entries the following column: "Last Issued" as n\a.
Do I need to ignore such entries, how do I fix that?
Thanks,
Nissim.