NPM and vmware vcenter

Question

Hello,

I tried to add vcenter node to my SolarWinds Orion. User test credentials passed successfully but snmp test failed so I am unable to add server to my SolarWinds. I have to emphasize that i manage to add my all esxi servers without any problems and that I am absolutely positive that that I didn't miss any parameter in configuration. Snmp is on on vcenter port is 161 and community string is the same on both side.

Any advise would be highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Dragan

Deltona · Answer

Hi there,

Not everything is monitored through vCenter because vCenter doesn't have all the performance details of hosts. You still need SNMP to monitor performance. Also, some details are not available on specific versions of ESX unless retreived using SNMP.
VIM is designed to be backwards compatible with the different versions of ESX.

With regards to polling the vCenter through SNMP, did you specify who may poll the server using SNMP? SNMP Service > Security > "Accept SNMP packets from"

If vCenter is running on 2k8 then restart the service, this is neccessary after initial SNMP configuration.

matthewgraci · Answer

Why does Solarwinds require SNMP on the ESXi host when all of the data mentioned can be gathered via vCenter?

Thanks,

-Matt

adatole · Answer

Your credentials to the VCenter machine will be a windows account (domain\username) that has login permission to VCenter directly. SNMP monitoring of the VCenter server itself is not critical (nice, but not critical).

Your credentials to the ESX machines will likely be "root". SNMP monitoring of the SNMP boxes is key to grab ALL the hardware info you may need at the host level.

Finally, the guests are treated line actual machines, regardless of the fact that they are virtual. If you have the credentials set correctly above (VC and ESX) then all the guest info will be correlated correctly.

HTH.

- Leon