Application monitoring with VMware Wavefront

IT Control meets Developer Agility

If you are a VMware fan or working with VMware products I’ll bet you heard of vRealize Operations with Endpoint Operations for application monitoring. But did you know that VMware also has an application monitoring & analytics tool running in the cloud? This cloud-hosted service is called Wavefront. Where vRealize Operations is best fit for private cloud monitoring from a infrastructure angle. Wavefront is build in and made for the cloud, using real-time analytics, highly scalable and developer optimized. As both products have their own advantages why not use both?

Four simple steps to integrate

In the latest release of vRealize Operations, version 6.7, VMware has made it very easy to integrate Wavefront for application monitoring.

1 – Login to the vROps console using an admin account.

2 – Select the “Application Monitoring (Wavefront)” link from the left menu in the Home screen.

In the Application Monitoring with VMware Wavefront screen you’ll see the four steps for setting up Wavefront and integrating it with vRealize Operations.

Step 1 – Create a Wavefront account

1 – In the Application Monitoring with VMware Wavefront screen, select the “Create Account” link.

2 – Enter your name, company and a valid email address. Click “Sign Up Now“.

3 – Check your email to activate your account.

4 – Once activated, login to Wavefront.

5 – On the right side of the screen, click on the gear box. Select your username (email address) to edit your profile.

6 – Select the correct “Preferred Time Zone“. This must match the time zone of your vRealize Operations environment.

7 – Select “API Access” and generate a token. Copy this token to your clipboard.

8 – Go back to the vROps Application Monitoring with VMware Wavefront screen. Enter your Wavefront URL, in this case https://longboard.wavefront.com (trial environment). Paste your API token and click “Save“.

Step 2 – Install & Configure a Application Proxy

For your on-prem application Virtual Machines to communicate with Wavefront you need to install and configure an Application Proxy.

1 – In the Application Monitoring with VMware Wavefront screen, select the “Download” link in Step 2.

2 – Login to vCenter Server with an admin account and deploy the Application Proxy OVA.

3 – Select the configuration size of the Application Proxy, “Small” or “Medium“.

4 – Enter a password for the API Admin user.

5 – Enter IP and DNS information.

6 – After a successful deployment, start the Application Proxy VM.

7 – Login to the Application Proxy console using SSH and change the Root password.

8 – Go back to the vROps Application Monitoring with VMware Wavefront screen. Select the “Configure VMware Application Proxy” tab and click “+Add an Application Proxy“.

9 – Enter the FQDN of your Application Proxy, API Admin user (admin) and the password used during deployment of the Application Proxy OVA. Click “Next“.

10 – Select your vCenter Server(s) to be used with this Application Proxy. Click “Next“.

11 – Review and click “Finish“.

12 – Wait a couple of minutes to view the state of your Application Proxy.

13 – Login to Wavefront, select “Browse” and click “Proxies” to verify the state of your Application Proxy.

Step 3 – Install & Configure agents

Once your Application Proxy is up and running you can install agents on your Virtual Machines to automatically discover applications and send application metrics to Wavefront.

1 – Go back to the vROps Application Monitoring with VMware Wavefront screen. Select the “Agent Management” tab. Select a Virtual Machine using the Virtual Machine Filter. Click on “Manage Agent” and select “Install“.

2 – Select how to provide credentials. In my case, select “Common username & password“. Click “Next“.

3 – Enter Username and Password of the Virtual Machine OS to install the agent. Click “Next“.

4 – Review and click “Deploy Agent“.

5 – When the agent is deployed successfully it wil show “Agent Running”.

6 – After a couple of minutes the agent will show the application services discovered on the Virtual Machine.

Here’s a list of applications that will be automatically discovered by the agent:

7 – Select the Virtual Machine and click “Manage Service“. Select “Tomcat“.

8 – Enter the Tomcat Base URL and Installed Path. SSL information is optional. Click “Confirm“.

9 – Tomcat application metrics are now collected and send over to Wavefront. To verify, login to Wavefront, select “Browse” and click “Sources“. Enter your Virtual Machine name in the Search bar.

Step 4 – Use Wavefront to view your application metrics

For all of the automatic discovered applications, Wavefront has a built-in pre-configured dashboard available. These dashboards are easy to copy, customize and share with other users.

1 – Login to Wavefront, select “Dashboards” and click “All Dashboards“.

2 – Search for the “Linux Host” and “Apache Tomcat” dashboard. Click on the star icon to add them to your Favorites.

3 – Select the “Linux Host” dashboard to view all kind of Linux OS metrics of your Virtual Machine.

4 – Select the “Apache Tomcat” dashboard to view specific application metrics about Tomcat.

With the application metrics collected and the dashboards in place you are now able to quickly triage infrastructure versus application issues. But Wavefront can do so much more. So go, explore and be amazed!