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Did anybody else notice the ~44 new and ~5 updated modules around VMware dropping in the last hour or so? Does anyone know how to implement these new modules? Since there was talk of making the instances into resources I don’t want to just bring them in without knowing how it’s going to mess with my device list (which is tightly bound to billing for us).
Best answer by Patrick Rouse
View originalWe’re part the way through onboarding a load of internal and customer VMware platform platforms into LM, so interested in this as well.
I’d be interested to understand the reason for releasing new modules over updating the existing? The commit history for the brand new ones mentioned ‘optimized for vSphere 8’ but the AppliesTo doesn’t seem to limit them to vSphere 8 vCenters/hosts, so loathed to import them just yet as I expect we’ll have a lot of duplication in data collection and alerts if we did.
Dave
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Supposedly the new ones create resources instead of instances (not sure how that magic works), so that would allow you to do a soft migration maintaining the old stuff while getting the new stuff working.
If the QA on these modules matches the QA on the common configsources, these ain’t getting imported any time soon.
That would be interesting… one of our pain points at the moment is putting vSphere hosts into SDT. We don’t actually monitor the hosts as such at the moment, just through the vCenter, so the vCenter is the only resource. As I understand it, if our operations team wants to SDT a host, we’d have to do it under each datasource it appears in under it’s parent vCenter.
If hosts and datastores etc show up a devices that can be separately SDT’d then that’d be great.
Likewise, we’re setting up a separate LM instance to do stuff like this in!
Dave
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I think that’s generally the advantage they’re trying to provide. Make things that should be resources into resources (not instances). The same is reportedly going to happen for Meraki (and maybe other controller based tech).
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Below are some highlights about the new VMware vSphere modules.
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That would be interesting… one of our pain points at the moment is putting vSphere hosts into SDT. We don’t actually monitor the hosts as such at the moment, just through the vCenter, so the vCenter is the only resource. As I understand it, if our operations team wants to SDT a host, we’d have to do it under each datasource it appears in under it’s parent vCenter.
If hosts and datastores etc show up a devices that can be separately SDT’d then that’d be great.
Likewise, we’re setting up a separate LM instance to do stuff like this in!
Dave
To accomplish this with the new modules and onboarding process, you can have the Enhanced Script NetScan add your desired vSphere Clusters (ESXi hosts) as Resources and disable the following DataSources:
VMware_vCenter_HostPerformance
VMware_vCenter_HostVSwitch
VMware_vCenter_HostInterfaces
After doing this, you can selectively SDT by DataCenter, Cluster, Resource Pool, or individual ESXi host.
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Did anybody else notice the ~44 new and ~5 updated modules around VMware dropping in the last hour or so? Does anyone know how to implement these new modules? Since there was talk of making the instances into resources I don’t want to just bring them in without knowing how it’s going to mess with my device list (which is tightly bound to billing for us).
Hi,
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We’re part the way through onboarding a load of internal and customer VMware platform platforms into LM, so interested in this as well.
I’d be interested to understand the reason for releasing new modules over updating the existing? The commit history for the brand new ones mentioned ‘optimized for vSphere 8’ but the AppliesTo doesn’t seem to limit them to vSphere 8 vCenters/hosts, so loathed to import them just yet as I expect we’ll have a lot of duplication in data collection and alerts if we did.
Dave
Hi,
To maintain historical data, make sure to disable previous datasources rather than changing the AppliesTo or deleting them.
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Hi,
@Stuart Weenig . Migrating to the new modules will not convert instances into Resources. However, the Enhanced Script NetScan filters make it easy to add the ESXi hosts and Mission Critical VMs you want to monitor as Resources. You can setup filters that mirror your business logic and schedule the NetScan to query vCenter on (as frequent as) an hourly basis to add the exact resources you want, so what you deem to need monitoring gets monitored automatically.
So all the netscan really does is add the resources I already have in LM and create some group structure? Pretty sure we’re not going to use it then since adding devices in is associated with billing and we don’t just add stuff in because it exists. Is there a propertysource we can use to grab the additional properties the nestcan would set without all the stuff we don’t need?
Is there any benefit to importing the datasources if I’m not using the netscan?
That’s a huge netscan script and a lot of warnings about changing it. If you’re so worried about people changing it, why not make it a snippet and then the netscan script is 3-4 lines (import the snippet, run the snippet, output the data)?
Pretty sure we’re not going to use it then since adding devices in is associated with billing and we don’t just add stuff in because it exists.
We’re probably in the same camp. I’m pretty sure that we get what we need in terms of host monitoring through vCenter. I can’t imagine that we would add the hosts individually into LM as there would be a cost associated with adding each host. We may just look at customising alerts on the existing datasources so that they take into account of host maintenance mode in the vCenter inventory (i.e. don’t throw an alert if a host is in maint mode).
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Hi,
@Stuart Weenig . Migrating to the new modules will not convert instances into Resources. However, the Enhanced Script NetScan filters make it easy to add the ESXi hosts and Mission Critical VMs you want to monitor as Resources. You can setup filters that mirror your business logic and schedule the NetScan to query vCenter on (as frequent as) an hourly basis to add the exact resources you want, so what you deem to need monitoring gets monitored automatically.
So all the netscan really does is add the resources I already have in LM and create some group structure? Pretty sure we’re not going to use it then since adding devices in is associated with billing and we don’t just add stuff in because it exists. Is there a propertysource we can use to grab the additional properties the nestcan would set without all the stuff we don’t need?
Is there any benefit to importing the datasources if I’m not using the netscan?
That’s a huge netscan script and a lot of warnings about changing it. If you’re so worried about people changing it, why not make it a snippet and then the netscan script is 3-4 lines (import the snippet, run the snippet, output the data)?
Certainly, you do not have to use the NetScan. However, if you have some logic in vCenters that determine what should be monitored as a resource, i.e. tags, naming conventions…. the NetScan can use those to automatically add resources as they are created (in less than an hour if you set the NetScan to recurring) so you don’t have to have a manual process to do this. Some customers prohibit use of ICMP NetScans in their Data Centers, so they use a manual process to export information from vCenter, put it in a properly formatted CSV file, then import it into LM. Because this NetScan communicates with vCenter rather than scanning the network, it can automate this process. The organization part of the NetScan makes it easy for VMware admins to find resources, because it puts them in LM in a structure that mirrors what’s in vCenter. So, the VMware admin gets a folder structure that is intuitive to them, and the business can use Dynamic Resource Groups to place resources in LM where it makes sense to the business. For existing customers like yourselves, you’d have to decide if you want to use this method or not. It’s not required.
If the existing modules are working for you without issue and you don’t see an immediate need for any of the new features (shown in the screenshots above), then you can plan to migrate when it makes sense to you. However, if at some point you encounter an issue with a future vSphere 8.x compatibility issue or some other issue with the deprecated modules, your recourse would be to adopt the new/replacement module(s). The new modules are the only ones “supported” for vSphere 8.x.
As for the NetScan, we’re looking at ways to reduce the total steps required and to mitigate user error, but I don’t expect those to come in 2023. For now, it achieved our goals of organizing resources in an manner that’s intuitive for VMware Admins, automating vSphere device discover and onboarding, and reducing the typical time to onboard new hosts and VMs that customers want to monitor as Resources from as much as a week to an hour or less.
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if you have some logic in vCenters that determine what should be monitored as a resource, i.e. tags, naming conventions
As an MSP, we never have that luxury. For the same reason, we can’t use LM’s fancy interface alert filtering.
you don’t have to have a manual process to do this
I don’t have a manual process to do this. It’s sync’d in from our billing system of record.
Any chance you’re going to put out documentation on how to utilize the new datasources without using the netscan? If I import these today, will they start monitoring since I already have things like esx/vcenter/vsphere credentials already added as properties? What’s the migration process for existing customers? Will there be/is there part of this update a property source that will pull the tags so we can still do dynamic grouping based on tags?
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No, that’s not really the best answer and didn’t answer my question.
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Coming from a MSP as well, I agree with Stuart. Is the future plan to deprecate the current modules? And move to a non instance based one? If so that impacts us on our license counts, billing to clients, etc….
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if you have some logic in vCenters that determine what should be monitored as a resource, i.e. tags, naming conventions
As an MSP, we never have that luxury. For the same reason, we can’t use LM’s fancy interface alert filtering.
you don’t have to have a manual process to do this
I don’t have a manual process to do this. It’s sync’d in from our billing system of record.
Any chance you’re going to put out documentation on how to utilize the new datasources without using the netscan? If I import these today, will they start monitoring since I already have things like esx/vcenter/vsphere credentials already added as properties? What’s the migration process for existing customers? Will there be/is there part of this update a property source that will pull the tags so we can still do dynamic grouping based on tags?
From the new product docs → https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/vmware-vsphere-monitoring
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The new dashboard are here:
https://github.com/logicmonitor/dashboards/tree/master/Virtualization/VMware%20(Current)
Thanks
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Coming from a MSP as well, I agree with Stuart. Is the future plan to deprecate the current modules? And move to a non instance based one? If so that impacts us on our license counts, billing to clients, etc….
Which current modules? Thanks
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We don’t have any plans to remove instance-based monitoring of ESXi-hosted VMs, but rather are focused on making it fast and frictionless for customers to add Resources for VMs that they determine need OS/workload monitoring.
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So, no documented migration plan for those not starting from scratch?
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At the bottom of the product docs:
Each customers’ change control process is likely to be unique, but you may find value in this high-level (generalized) diagram.
If there are specific questions or scenarios you’d like us to add to the product documentation, please let me know and we’ll be happy to consider adding them.
Thanks
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In the modules table, if the “replaces” column is “n/a”, does that mean it’s a new module that didn’t exist before?
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In the modules table, if the “replaces” column is “n/a”, does that mean it’s a new module that didn’t exist before?
That or it's a module update rather than a new module. For example “VMware_LM_Troubleshooter”
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Any chance that distinction could be made? New modules are fine, but for existing modules, I have to check for customizations and custom thresholds applied at group levels. Knowing which ones are new and which ones are updates (which contradicts the you-can-safely-import-these-because-they-have-different-names message) will cut down on the amount of work I have to do to vet these modules.
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