14 Replies Latest reply on Oct 18, 2013 7:01 AM by hcy01uk

VMWare datastore reports

mjbehrendt Mar 26, 2013 10:09 AM

Hi all,

I'm looking for a way to generate a report on free space on my ESXi datastores. Is there any way to do this in SAM? I can see the datastore names and sizes, but not the free space.

Any ideas or report templates? I've tried searching but have only come up with "buy profiler" as an answer.

Thanks,

Mark

Re: VMWare datastore reports

aLTeReGo Mar 27, 2013 10:21 AM (in response to mjbehrendt)

Are you monitoring the volumes on your ESX host via SNMP as pictured here for this node?
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- Re: VMWare datastore reports
  
  mjbehrendt Mar 28, 2013 3:28 PM (in response to aLTeReGo)
  
  No. I'm running ESXi and it is a giant pain to get an SNMP running on the hosts. I'm monitoring the host hardware via vCenter. When I drill down into an individual node (Virtualization tab, expand vcenter server, expand datacenter, expand cluster, click on node) I can expand disk and see a list of my iSCSI disks, and their total capacity, but not how much space they have free/used.
  
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  - Re: VMWare datastore reports
    
    aLTeReGo Mar 28, 2013 5:28 PM (in response to mjbehrendt)
    
    Each ESX/i host managed in Orion (regardless if VMware polling is occurring direct or through a vCenter) must be configured to use SNMP if you want to see volume usage metrics. Orion does not currently collect volume usage information using the VMware API. It's very likely that your ESXi hosts are managed as ICMP nodes, and not via SNMP.
    
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    - Re: VMWare datastore reports
      
      mjbehrendt Mar 29, 2013 8:30 AM (in response to aLTeReGo)
      
      Thanks,
      
      I am polling the ESXi hosts via ICMP, not SNMP. When I was originally setting up Orion, the walk through for how to enable SNMP on an ESXi host had some gaping holes in it making it unusable. Has it gotten any better since the release of ESXi 5.1?
      
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      - Re: VMWare datastore reports
        
        aLTeReGo Mar 29, 2013 11:20 AM (in response to mjbehrendt)
        
        It's not terribly bad. You can follow the instructions outlined at the link below to enable SNMP on ESXi 5.1.
        
        http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.monitoring.doc%2FGUID-0EB48A32-34B0-4003-B2D0-ADE3BAFD29F0.html
        
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Re: VMWare datastore reports

Jay Harris Mar 28, 2013 3:05 PM (in response to mjbehrendt)

Mark,
I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, but here is a report I put together.
http://thwack.solarwinds.com/docs/DOC-170697
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- Re: VMWare datastore reports
  
  mjbehrendt Mar 28, 2013 3:29 PM (in response to Jay Harris)
  
  Jay,
  
  I tried that report, and it only gives me the drive space used on the vCenter server. I would like a report that details the datastores that are attached to the ESXi servers in the various clusters I have.
  
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  - Re: VMWare datastore reports
    
    Jay Harris Mar 28, 2013 5:02 PM (in response to mjbehrendt)
    
    It is interesting that it only shows vCenter. In my network it shows vCenter, all ESXi nodes, and their datastores. I monitor my VM nodes through vCenter using a domain account that has rights to vCenter. My storage is on Fibre Channel.
    
    I noticed in your response to aLTeReGo that you were looking in the Hardware Health section for your disk info. My space usage is not there. It is in the "Disk Volumes" resource.
    
    Here is a screenshot of my Virtualization settings, in case that helps.
    It seems to me that the polling is not quite right. I will ask my VMware guy if he has an easy way to get the SNMP settings working quickly on nodes.
    
    UPDATE:
    My VMware guy uses vCenter CLI to set a host up for SNMP using these commands:
    vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -c community
    vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --enable
    
    He then makes a host profile from that host and applies it to each host in the cluster.
    
    He said it can also be run against each host individually.
    He also mentioned that all of our hosts have their authentication services setup for Active Directory.
    
    Just as a very simple example:
    vicfg-snmp.pl --server 10.11.12.14 --username root --password rootpass –c public
    vicfg-snmp.pl --server 10.11.12.14 --username root --password rootpass –enable
    
    VMWare docs on this are here:
    http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.monitoring.doc_50%2FGUID-8EF36D7D-59B6-4C74-B1AA-4A9D18AB6250.html&resultof=%22%53%4e%4d%50%22%20%22%73%6e%6d%70%22%20
    
    2 of 2 people found this helpful
    
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    - Re: VMWare datastore reports
      
      mjbehrendt Mar 28, 2013 4:50 PM (in response to Jay Harris)
      
      Thanks Jay.
      
      My VM Ware settings page looks a lot like yours.
      
      My "Disk Volumes" section is empty. Weird.
      
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Re: VMWare datastore reports

mjbehrendt May 8, 2013 9:02 AM (in response to mjbehrendt)

Sorry to necro-post on this one, but I'm still not getting details of my iSCSI volumes on my ESXi 5.1 hosts. I've enabled SNMP on each host and changed the polling method to SNMP and ICMP. It's been that way for about a month, and still nothing in the disk volumes section on any of the hosts.

Any other ideas?
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- Re: VMWare datastore reports
  
  aLTeReGo May 8, 2013 1:08 PM (in response to mjbehrendt)
  
  Since changing the polling method from ICMP to SNMP have you clicked "List Resources" on the "Management" resource on the "Node Details" view for that node? Are the volumes listed and are they selected to be monitored? A screenshot might be helpful.
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  - Re: VMWare datastore reports
    
    mjbehrendt May 8, 2013 1:42 PM (in response to aLTeReGo)
    
    That seems to have done the trick.
    
    Next question: Is there a way to have the volume name something meaningful? It just shows me a long string like /vmfs/volumes/4ec2b746-80ec562e-58f6-00219b8df30f.
    
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    - Re: VMWare datastore reports
      
      aLTeReGo May 8, 2013 1:54 PM (in response to mjbehrendt)
      
      You can modify the name of any volume by going to "Manage Nodes", selecting the volume, and clicking "Edit Properties" as pictured below.
      
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Re: VMWare datastore reports

hcy01uk Oct 18, 2013 7:01 AM (in response to mjbehrendt)

Another VMware Datastore Report http://thwack.solarwinds.com/docs/DOC-171611
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