vROps

How to Configure Applications Monitoring in vROps 8.0

Applications Monitoring is an exciting functionality in vRealize Operations. To start monitoring one of the twenty services currently supported by vROps, the vRealize Operations Application Remote Collector (ARC) needs to be deployed and configured in vROps.

The Application Remote Collector is provided as OVA and the deployment process runs similarly to any other VMware OVA deployment.

The most important part during the deployment of the ARC is the API Admin user’s password which is needed for the configuration of this particular ARC in vROps.

Figure 1: ARC Admin user password

Adding the Application Remote Collector (ARC) to vROps

From the vROps “Home” screen you start the configuration of the freshly deployed ARC.

Figure 2: vROps Monitor Applications

Click on “Configure Application Monitoring” to start the process.

Figure 3: Configuring Applications Monitoring

In the following step a freshly deployed ARC can be added and configured. There is also an option to download the OVA just by clicking on the green arrow button.

Figure 4: Add and configure ARC

The next dialog expects basically two values, the FQDN or IP of the ARC and the Admin User’s password specified during the OVA deployment.

Figure 5: ARC configuration values

In the next step we need to specify the vCenters which will be managed by this instance of the Application Remote Collector. One ARC can manage multiple vCenter instances.

Figure 6: Managed vCenter(s)

We can test the connection and after accepting the certificate we can click on “Finish” and complete the ARC configuration.

Figure 7: Finishing the ARC configuration

After few minutes, the status of the ARC should show “Healthy” and report back the correct version.

Figure 8: “Healthy” ARC

Managing Agents

Once the ARC has been configured in vROps we can install agents on VMs running in the vCenter(s) managed by this particular ARC.

Figure 9: Managing ARC agents

One click on “Manage Agents” brings uns to the vROps Inventory – “Manage Agents” tab. Here we can select one or multiple VM objects and start the installation of the agent.

Figure 10: Installing agents

We need to enter credentials. For the user account prerequisites please see:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations-Manager/8.0/com.vmware.vcom.core.doc/GUID-D1152A54-550F-42AD-8B94-B83DEABCCD8C.html

Figure 11: Installing agents- VM credentials

Since I am installing the first agent on a Linux machine, and this is just a test lab, I am using the root account, which should be avoided in production environments.

Figure 12: Installing agents- VM credentials – Linux VM

After clicking on “Install Agent” and waiting several minutes, the status of the agent should be like in the following figure.

Figure 13: Successfully installed agent

As you can see in the Figure 13, the agent discovered Apache HTTPD service running on the VM.

NOTE: This has nothing to do with the vROps Service Discovery functionality.

At this stage there is still no vROps object related to the discovered Apache instance.

Figure 14: No Apache instance

This is because we first need to configure the agent to properly monitor any discovered (supported) service.

Figure 15: Configuring application monitoring – Apache HTTPD

My Apache instance has been configured to serve the status page, this does not have to be the same in every Apache installation, so be sure that your Apache is configured accordingly.

Figure 16: Apache HTTPD configuration values

After clicking on “Save” and “Close” and waiting few minutes, we see a successful configuration.

Figure 16: Monitoring Apache HTTPD

After few collection cycles we see the corresponding vROps object and the collected metrics and properties.

Application Monitoring integrated into vRealize Operations opens up new perspectives and contributes to the holistic view into IT environments provided by vROps.

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