Monitor vCenter Server appliance with the End-Point Operations Agent

With the release of VMware vRealize Operations Manager version 6.1, VMware introduced a new method for monitoring inside a supported operating system. Before vRealize Operations 6.1, you needed vRealize Hyperic to monitors operating systems, middleware and applications running in physical, virtual and cloud environments. With the 6.1 release of vRealize Operations, VMware introduced the End-Point Operations Agent (EPOps or EPO agent). Not to be confused with the McAfee EPo agent.

Not all Hyperic Monitoring solutions have been migrated into an End-Point Operations Agent yet but the solution for Active Directory, SQL Server, Apache Tomcat, PostgreSQL and vCenter Server are available and more will follow.

(Here you can find a list of Operating Systems supported by the End Point Operation Agent.)

End-Point Operations Agent to monitor vCenter Server Appliance

Of course you can monitor the basic items of vCenter Server but with vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations Manager you can monitor all of the vCenter internals to provide you with more visibility into your vCenter health and capacity usage. It also comes with pre-defined dashboards which allow you to see the status and the relationships between the different components of the vCenter, such as: SSO, database, web client, inventory server and application server.

The solution is applicable both for Windows based and Linux based vCenter servers and requires installation of End-Point Operations Agents on all vCenter and SSO Servers (Windows and Appliance) to collect the necessary data. The vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations Manager requires a standard edition of vRealize Operations for both the appliance and standalone deployments. It is compatible with both vRealize Operations 6.1 and 6.2 and supports monitoring vCenter Server 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0.

vCenter Server with vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations provides:

• A structured tree for easy navigation between the different vCenter server components.
• Overall view of different vCenter servers and have one consolidate view to reflect their overall health, structure and key performance indicators.
• Simplified end to end troubleshooting by easy drill down to the different components.

Health Monitoring and Availability:

• proactively monitor and assess components availability, such as vCenter server service, SQL server, Reverse proxy, API endpoint service and many more
• Get proactively notified on failures, performance and utilization issues on an ongoing basis, review symptoms and recommendations for a remediation strategy

Performance:

• Ensure vCenter services and components are meeting the requirements for stable operation. For example, this can be accomplished by monitoring metrics like vCenter management web service response time, vSphere web client response time ,vSphere managed object browser response time, vSphere SSO Load balancer response time and many more metrics

Capacity

• Monitor disk usage on disks across all vCenter components.

How to install vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations

I assume you have installed vRealize Operations but if you haven’t, download the appropriate installation (in this case the vROPS 6.2a appliance) and install and configure it.

Besides vRealize Operations you need the 64 bit Linux End-Point Operations Agent which you can download on the same page as the vRealize Operations appliance or installer.

Because I use vRealize Operations 6.2a the build number is ‘3404388′ and the file is ‘vRealize-Endpoint-Operations-Management-Agent-x86-64-linux-6.2.0-3404388.rpm’. The file name and build may vary according to the vRealize Operation version you are using.

And last but not least, you need the vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations management pack.

Install End-Point Operations Agent on vCenter Server Appliance

To install the agent on the vCenter Server you will need root access on the console or ssh and the shell enabled. You can enable both on the vCenter Server Appliance administration page (https://[vCenter Server]:5480). Copy the agent file you downloaded to a temporary location and run the installer.

sudo rpm -Uvh vRealize-Endpoint-Operations-Management-Agent-x86-64-linux-6.2.0-3404388.rpm

Carefully watch the output of the installer and confirm that the installation was successful.

Configure the End-Point Operations Agent

In my environment the start of the agent service failed but after some investigation I found the solution. By default the agent uses the ‘epops‘ user to run but this turned out to be insufficient. You need to change the credentials with which the agent connects to the vCenter Server services. You can do this by following the instructions below.

Open the /etc/init.d/epops-agent file.

Modify the credentials the agent uses by change the line:

RUN_AS_USER=epops

to

RUN_AS_USER=root

and

Also find the line below:

AGENT_CTL="su $RUN_AS_USER -s $SHELL $AGENT_INSTALL_DIR/epops-agent/bin/ep-agent.sh"

and remove $SHELL, such that the line now reads:

AGENT_CTL="su $RUN_AS_USER -s $AGENT_INSTALL_DIR/epops-agent/bin/ep-agent.sh"

Using vCenter Server 6.0?

And if you are using vCenter Server 6.0 virtual appliance, an additional change needs to be made.

Find the line that reads:

AGENT_CTL="su $RUN_AS_USER -s $AGENT_INSTALL_DIR/epops-agent/bin/ep-agent.sh"

and replace $RUN_AS_USER with $RUN_AS_USER=root, such that the line now reads:

AGENT_CTL="su $RUN_AS_USER=root -s $AGENT_INSTALL_DIR/epops-agent/bin/ep-agent.sh"

Restart the Endpoint Operations Agent by running this command:

service esops-agent restart

Install and configure the Management Pack

Before closing the vCenter Server console, look for the PostgreSQL password which you will need later to configure the management pack.

Show the content of the vcdv.properties file with the following command

cat  /etc/vmware-vpx/vcdb.properties

The file should look like this:

driver = org.postgresql.Driver
dbtype = PostgreSQL
url = jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/VCDB
username = vc
password = ################
password.encrypted = false

Write down the username and password.

Access the vRealize Operations console, go to ‘Administration > Solutions‘ and add the install the vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations Manager management pack (epops-vcenter-1.1.3282112.pak).

When you’ve installed the vCenter Self-Monitoring Solution for vRealize Operations Manager management pack, go to ‘Administration > Inventory Explorer > Adapter Types > EP Ops Adapter’ and select ‘vCenter App Server – [server name]’, ‘vCenter App Server – vcsa.corp.local’ in my case. Select pencil symbol above the table to edit this object.

Provide the correct vCenter Server credentials.

Next up, we need to configure the PostgreSQL agent, select the object called ‘PostgreSQL – [server name]‘, ‘PostgreSQL – vcsa.corp.local’ in my case, and edit it.

Here we need the username and password we collected earlier.

Provide the PostgreSQL credentials you collected from the vcdv.properties file.

After a few minutes the Collection status symbols should turn green and you should see a new dashboard under ‘Home > Dashboard List > Applications > vCenter Server Monitoring’

And some new objects under ‘Environment > Operating Systems > Linux > [server name]‘.

Note: Investigating a solution for the problems I encountered I found an extensive list with vROP 6.1 Install, configure and licensing tips published by Viktor van den Berg (@viktoriousss).