vce hp operations manager whitepaper

© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 1

VBLOCK™ INFRASTRUCTURE

PLATFORMS – GUIDELINES FOR

MONITORING WITH HP OPERATIONS

MANAGER (HP OPENVIEW)

August 2011


Table of Contents

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................3

The Challenge .......................................................................................................................................3

The Solution ..........................................................................................................................................3

Technology Overview .................................................................................................................................6

HP Technologies ...................................................................................................................................6

Vblock Infrastructure Platforms .............................................................................................................8

Vblock Monitoring with HP Operations Manager .................................................................................. 10

Key Vblock Components to Monitor ................................................................................................... 11

Setting Up Monitoring on Vblock Components................................................................................... 13

Setting Up Your HP Operations Manager Containers ........................................................................ 21

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 23

References ................................................................................................................................................ 24


Executive Summary

With Vblock™ Infrastructure Platforms, VCE delivers the industry’s first completely integrated IT offering that

combines best-in-class network, compute, storage, management, virtualization, and security technologies with

end-to-end vendor accountability.

Organizations that use HP Operations Manager (formerly HP OpenView Operations Manager) will require an

understanding of how Vblock platforms interoperate with enterprise management frameworks to monitor

performance, capacity, and availability. This paper provides a high-level approach to monitoring Vblock platforms

with HP Operations Manager by identifying the monitoring requirements for each Vblock component and mapping

out a set of recommended configurations for meeting these requirements.

By leveraging a combination of industry standard SNMP protocol and third party Smart Plug-ins for HP Operations

Manager, organizations can effectively integrate Vblock platforms into their existing HP Operations Manager

framework, allowing them to introduce Vblock converged infrastructure to their data centers while maintaining

current data center monitoring methodologies.

The Challenge

Organizations have made sizeable investments in automated monitoring and management infrastructures like HP

Operations Manager. With these monitoring infrastructures in place, they require the information necessary to

integrate Vblock technologies effectively and efficiently to maximize their return on investment.

The Solution

IT decision makers and data center managers can address this challenge by configuring HP Operations Manager

to monitor Vblock platforms using the following:

HP Network Node Manager – to act as the SNMP management station

SNMP v2 – to monitor the network, compute, and storage components of Vblock

Third-party Smart Plug-in from Veeam – to monitor the virtualization components of Vblock

Scope

This paper contains guidelines for using HP Operations Manager to monitor Vblock platforms. The scope is on

monitoring rather than configuration and provisioning. It is strongly recommended that you use the following tools

as specified by VCE for configuration and provisioning:

Cisco® Unified Computing System (UCS) Manager

EMC® Ionix™ Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM)

EMC Symmetrix Management Console (SMC)

EMC Unisphere

VMware vCenter™

Assumptions

This paper assumes a basic understanding of the following:

HP Operations Manager and HP Network Node Manager

Vblock platforms, including component technologies from VMware®, Cisco®, and EMC®

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)


Audience

Directors of IT, Operations Managers, and technical staff looking to integrate the day-to-day monitoring of VCE

Vblock technologies into existing data center management solutions will find this information useful; especially

those who have invested in HP Operations Manager as their single view for event and system monitoring and

alerting.

Sales engineers, field consultants, professional services, IT managers, infrastructure architects, partner engineers,

and customers may also find the content useful when working to integrate Vblock platforms into other existing

monitoring products.

Terminology

The table below defines terms used in this paper.

Term Definition

Alert A system event requiring administrative attention. These events may be severe enough to cause a system error or disrupt user access.

Converged infrastructure A converged infrastructure packages multiple information technology (IT) components into a single, optimized computing solution. Components of a converged infrastructure solution include servers, data storage devices, virtualization, networking equipment and software for IT infrastructure management, automation, and orchestration.

Event Alerts or notifications created by an IT Service, Configuration item, or Monitoring tool. Events are typically written to an event log or trigger an event notification via email or SNMP.

HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO)

Business Technology Optimization is the name HP uses to refer to all its IT management capabilities, including all the products previously branded under the HP OpenView name. BTO is both an approach to IT management and a category of software and services supporting that approach. The BTO product suite includes HP Operations Manager and HP Network Node Manager, both of which are key to this paper.

HP Network Node Manager A component product of HP Operations Center; formerly named HP OpenView Network Node Manager. Network Node Manager is the authoritative discovery source for network configuration items and their relationships for the universal configuration management database (UCMDB).

HP Node Editor HP Operations Manager tool used to build a hierarchical tree layout of Vblock platforms and its components.

HP Operations Manager A component product of HP Operations Center; formerly named HP OpenView Operations Manager. Operations Manager provides a single management console for the heterogeneous IT environment.

Management Information Base (MIB)

Hierarchical database maintained by an agent that a network management station can query, using a network management protocol such as SNMP.

Notification Actions taken in response to a particular event. An action could be an SNMP trap. There are two types of notifications: event notifications, which are notifications, based on predefined system events such as a temperature being too high, and resource notifications, which are notifications based on user-specified resource usage limits or thresholds.

Object Identifier (OID) A numeric string used to identify an object uniquely. OIDs are used with MIBs to set specific traps via SNMP.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

An Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP networks. Method used to communicate management information between the network management stations and the agents in the network elements.


Term Definition

SNMP Agent Software module in a managed device such as a UCS Server or a CLARiiON storage system that maintains local management information and delivers that information to a manager using SNMP.

SNMP Community Defines a group of SNMP devices and management stations. Assists in defining where SNMP information and traps are sent.

SNMP Management Station The system used to control and monitor the activities of network devices using SNMP. In this paper, the SNMP Management Station is the host running the HP Network Node Manager software.

SNMP Trap The trap message is the way an SNMP agent communicates with the SNMP manager, notifying the manager of an event, such as a crash, a restart, or a network interface card failure.

Smart Plug-in (SPI) Smart Plug-in is an HP term and method for integrating a device or component into HP Operations Manager for sending alerts and events for monitoring. HP or a third party can provide a Smart Plug-in.

UCMDB HP Universal Configuration Management Database, which is HP’s implementation of a CMDB.


Technology Overview

Data center monitoring is vital to ensure optimal resource and service utilization. IT must provide for the

availability, performance, and optimal capacity of the enterprise, from the virtualization layer to the underlying

components. At its simplest, IT must be able to know the following:

Systems and devices are up, functioning, and not experiencing hardware or software issues or failures

Resources are being used appropriately and are operating at proper performance levels

There are no mission-critical events that could impact the business

This is a manageable operator task for environments with only one or two servers, a network switch, a router, and

a firewall; however, multiply the components by thousands or tens of thousands and the need for automated

monitoring of the enterprise becomes abundantly clear. Larger organizations commonly turn to enterprise

management systems to provide complete frameworks for monitoring, managing, reporting, and analyzing the

many heterogeneous devices and systems in their data centers. Data center monitoring is a critical factor in

ensuring that business applications maintain maximum availability and performance and that the capacity required

by those applications is available. This monitoring enables either proactive avoidance of problems or timely

detection and resolution when reacting to any problems that occur.

When considering monitoring Vblock platforms with HP Operations Manager, it is important to understand the

following key technologies:

HP enterprise management components, specifically the HP Operations Manager

SNMP standard protocol for device management and monitoring

Smart Plug-ins for HP Operations Manager

Vblock architecture

HP Technologies

HP Operations Manager is a product for monitoring and management of data centers and is part of the HP

Business Technology Optimization (BTO) product suite. It leverages customized and product-specific Smart Plug-

ins and SNMP to provide consistent and consolidated collection of information for use in monitoring operations

and events.

HP Operations Manager provides a hierarchical containerization feature that lets you monitor elements both

individually and as a whole. This feature is especially valuable to a converged infrastructure environment as it

provides the monitoring view needed to monitor and sustain its unified resources.

Note: HP Operations Manager requires that each individual Vblock component be set up and configured to communicate with HP Operations Manager Console.


The following HP BTO components are important to Vblock monitoring:

HP Operations Manager

HP Network Node Manager (NNM)

HP Operations Manager provides the core-alerting viewpoint for the HP BTO product suite. It allows you to view

alerts on a per node, device, and container basis. HP Network Node Manager provides Simple Network

Management Protocol (SNMP) v2 compatibility for SNMP-enabled devices. It also allows alert forwarding and

integration to the HP Operations Manager Console.

Figure 1 shows a high-level overview of HP Operations Manager and how the monitoring information aggregates

(or feeds up) from the devices, servers, and virtual machines for monitoring.

Figure 1. HP Operations Manager Architectural Overview

Integrated into most network devices and operating systems is the ability to send and receive device specific

information via SNMP, the industry standard network management protocol used to connect to devices, collect

their information, and bring it back to SNMP management stations. A Management Information Base (MIB) file,

which is specific to the device or system itself, contains a listing of objects to be monitored and various parameters

associated with each. This paper looks at using SNMP traps sent to the SNMP management stations for

monitoring. The ability to send SNMP traps is essential to communicate with the HP Network Node Manager host,

which ultimately allows integration of Vblock platforms with HP Operations Manager.

Smart Plug-ins (SPIs) are a method of integrating monitoring functionality for a specific device or application. HP

or a third-party vendor such as Veeam can publish them. This paper recommends using Veeam’s nworks Smart

Plug-in to provide the monitoring of the virtualization layer of the Vblock platform.


Vblock Infrastructure Platforms Vblock Infrastructure Platforms provide pre-engineered, production-ready (fully tested) virtualized infrastructure

components, including the best of breed technologies from Cisco, EMC, and VMware. Vblock Infrastructure

Platforms are designed and built to satisfy a broad range of specific customer implementation requirements. The

available Vblock platforms are:

Vblock Platform Description

Vblock Series 700 Designed to address a wide spectrum of virtual machines, users, and applications. Ideally suited to achieve the scale required in both private and

public cloud environments.

Vblock Series 300 Designed for deployments of very large numbers of virtual machines and users. Ideally suited to meet the higher performance and availability requirements of an

enterprise's business critical applications.

All the layers – compute, network, SAN switches, storage, and virtualization – need to be effectively monitored.

Organizations with existing investments in HP BTO want to receive alerts and event notifications for monitoring

through their existing data center management tool – HP Operations Manager.

Each Vblock platform consists of slightly different components. The table below highlights the various components

that are important to monitor, including what is common between Vblock platform types and what components

differ by type.

Category Vblock Series 300 Vblock Series 700

Compute Cisco UCS

B200M2 B250M2 B440M1 B230M1

Cisco UCS

B200M2 B250M2 B440M1 B230M1

Network Cisco Nexus 1000V Cisco Nexus 5000 Series

switches Cisco MDS 9000 Series SAN

switch

Cisco Nexus 1000V Cisco MDS 9000 Series SAN switch

Storage 300 HX

EMC VNX 7500

300GX

EMC VNX 5700

300FX

EMC VNX 5500

300 EX

EMC VNX 5300

Drive Types

EFD SAS NL-SAS

700MX

EMC Symmetrix VMAX

Drive Types

EFD Fibre Channel SATA

Virtualization VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus Suite


Note: This paper examines monitoring the infrastructure components of the Vblock platform (compute, network, storage, and virtualization).


Vblock Monitoring with HP Operations Manager

Successful integration of Vblock Infrastructure Platforms with the monitoring function of HP Operations Manager is

accomplished by leveraging a combination of the following:

Standard SNMP management protocol

Smart Plug ins (SPIs) available for HP Operations Manager

Native Vblock management consoles

Command Line Interface (CLI) for setting up and integrating the monitoring of Vblock platforms with HP

Operations Manager

This section takes a closer look at the compute (Cisco UCS), network (Cisco Nexus), storage (EMC Celerra, EMC

CLARiiON, EMC Symmetrix, and Cisco MDS), and virtualization (VMware vSphere) components of the Vblock

platform by discussing:

The key events to monitor to maintain maximum performance, availability, and capacity of Vblock

resources running your critical business application

HP Operations Manager integration method (SNMP or SPI) used for each component

Implementation of Vblock platform container within HP Operations Manager to complete the view of the

data center

Figure 2 shows the architecture for monitoring Vblock platform with HP Operations Manager.

Figure 2. High-level View of HP Monitoring Integration


For the Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus, Cisco MDS, EMC Celerra, EMC CLARiiON, and EMC Symmetrix components,

it is recommended that you leverage the industry standard SNMP protocol and set SNMP traps to send

information to HP Operations Manager for monitoring. Depending on the device, you can accomplish this using

either of the following methods:

The respective device GUI management interface

CLI command line interface

For the VMware vSphere virtualization component, it is recommended you use Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in, a

Smart Plug-in for HP Operations Manager readily available from Veeam Software. This plug in provides:

Full feature and function monitoring for the VMware vSphere components, including the ESX server and

guest virtual machines

Direct integration to HP Operations Manager

To facilitate monitoring Vblock platform converged infrastructure; organize each Vblock platform in the data center

as a holistic unit using the HP Operations Manager container functionality. The premise behind the container is to

create a hierarchy where individual Vblock components appear under a top-level Vblock platform. This allows

maximum operational visibility for all Vblock components and the unit as a whole.

To deploy the architecture shown in Figure 2 for monitoring Vblock platform with HP Operations Manager, you

must take several high-level steps. Figure 3 highlights these steps.

Figure 3. High-level Process for Monitoring Vblock Platform with HP Operations Manager

Key Vblock Components to Monitor

Vblock components (compute, network, storage, and virtualization) are monitored for both error conditions and

threshold events relating to performance, availability, and capacity. Components are monitored for conditions

relating to their state and resource threshold limits.

You can monitor many types of event categories for each of the various components that comprise Vblock Series

300 and 700. Different events and levels of alerts are generated for each event category – critical/emergency,

error condition, warning, and informational.


The following table provides a high-level overview of the various Vblock component categories and the respective

key items to monitor.

Component Monitoring Method Item to Monitor

Compute (Cisco UCS) SNMP CPU availability

CPU utilization

Buffer allocation

CPU memory

Power (chassis and blades)

Temperature

Link state

Chassis faults

Critical services

Network (Cisco Nexus) SNMP Link state

Bandwidth utilization

Packet loss

Packet loss rate

Storage (EMC Celerra, EMC CLARiiON, EMC Symmetrix, Cisco MDS)

SNMP RAID controllers

Physical disks

Logical disks

Volume availability

Storage processor(s)

Thin provisioning utilization

Virtualization (VMware vSphere) SPI (Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in) Hosts

Clusters

Virtual machines (VM)

Resource pools

Host processor (CPU) usage

Host memory usage

Host state

Virtual machine processor (CPU) usage

Virtual machine memory usage

Virtual machine state

Virtual machine heartbeat

Note: The purpose of this paper is to outline the key components to monitor and events to capture for monitoring in HP Operations Manager relative to Vblock platforms. It does not provide all the implementation details necessary to set up all SNMP traps.


It is important that you:

Set SNMP traps to be sent to the SNMP Management Console (HP Network Node Manager host) for all

Vblock infrastructure components for critical error conditions

Set SNMP traps to be sent to the SNMP Management Console (HP Network Node Manager host) for all

above or approaching threshold levels that if left unmonitored would result in a critical error

Configure Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in to send alerts to HP Operations Manager directly for both error

and threshold conditions for the virtualization layer

Set warning and informational conditions based on your organization’s specific business needs and practices.

Before setting up the specific SNMP traps, it is important to consult the individual vendor component

documentation and download the vendor-specific MIBs for each component to be monitored.

Setting Up Monitoring on Vblock Components

This section examines the key events to monitor and HP Operations Manager integration method for these Vblock

components:

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)

Cisco Nexus Switches

Cisco MDS Switches

EMC Celerra

EMC CLARiiON

EMC Symmetrix

VMware vSphere

Monitoring Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)

For the Cisco compute components of Vblock platforms, including the fabric interconnects, chassis, and blades,

use SNMP traps to capture such critical events as overall health, availability, and performance.

Enable SNMP for Cisco UCS using Cisco UCS-provided tools. Cisco UCS SNMP trap attributes provide all the

fault details to identify the nature and cause of the fault that UCS Manager detects. Be aware that SNMP

messages from a Cisco UCS instance display the fabric interconnect name rather than the system name. Refer to

Cisco UCS Manager GUI Configuration Guide, Release 1.3(1) and Cisco UCS Manager CLI Configuration Guide,

Release 1.3(1) for more information.

Enabling SNMP Traps on Cisco UCS

Figure 4 shows a high-level overview of the process to enable SNMP traps on Cisco UCS.

Figure 4. Enabling SNMP on Cisco UCS

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/1.3.1/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_1_3_1.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/cli/config/guide/1.3.1/b_CLI_Config_Guide_1_3_1.html



Key Events to Monitor

The following are key events to monitor for the Vblock Infrastructure Platform Cisco UCS component. These

events provide an effective balance of the performance, availability, and capacity of the Cisco UCS system.

UCS Component Statuses

Adaptor (DCD, HBA, NIC) Link Up/Down

Operational State (Fault)

Blade Server Power On/Off

Temperature


Chassis Power On/Off

Temperature


Fabric Interconnect Operational State (Fault)

Fabric Interconnect Fan Operational State (Fault

Fabric Interconnect Modules Ports (Ether, FC) Link Up/Down

Link Failures (Number)


Fabric Interconnect Power Supply (PSU) Power On/Off


UCS Power Supply Power On/Off

Monitoring Cisco Nexus Switches

The Cisco Nexus Series switches (1000/5000/7000) allow full support through SNMP v2 to monitor critical events,

such as temperature, processor state, link up/down, and power supplies. Use the following Cisco-provided MIBs

to accomplish this monitoring: CISCO-ENTITY library integration and IF-MIB. For more details on these MIBs,

refer to the model specific vender documentation.

Enabling SNMP Traps on Cisco Nexus

Figure 5 shows a high-level overview of the process to enable SNMP traps on Cisco Nexus switches.

Figure 5. Enabling SNMP on Cisco Nexus



The following are key events to monitor on Cisco Nexus Series Switches with default MIBs. The MIB responsible

for each event notification is listed in parentheses.

Link up/down status (IF-MIB)

Memory statistics and LED information (CISCO-ENTITY-EXT-MIB)

Power supplies, fans, and modules (CISCO-ENTITY-FRU-CONTROL-MIB)

Sensor temperature and environment (CISCO-ENTITY-SENSOR-MIB)

Module image management and upgrade status (CISCO-IMAGE-UPGRADE-MIB)

For addition information on Cisco Nexus MIB, go to

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/mib/reference/NX5000_MIBRef.html.

Monitoring Cisco MDS Switches

|For the Cisco MDS component of Vblock platforms, use SNMP traps to capture such critical events as zone,

sensor, and redundancy. These traps are recommended for effective Vblock platform monitoring through HP

Operations Manager.

Enabling SNMP traps on Cisco MDS requires making certain configurations using the Command Line Interface

(CLI) on the MDS switch. These changes enable forwarding Cisco MDS-specific link up and link down traps,

entity, fcdomain, and zone traps to HP Operations Manager.

Enabling SNMP Traps on Cisco MDS

Figure 7 shows a high-level overview of the process to enable SNMP traps on Cisco MDS.

Figure 6. Enabling SNMP on Cisco MDS


Cisco provides executables to integrate events with HP Operations Manager and ensure that HP Operations

Manager can recognize Cisco MDS 9000 events. Listed below are SNMP traps included in the executables,

which represent the key items to monitor for the SAN Fibre Channel Switch component:

Link

VSAN

Zone

Sensor

Field Replacement Unit (FRU)

Redundancy

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/mib/reference/NX5000_MIBRef.html


Monitoring EMC Celerra

The EMC Celerra supports SNMP by sending SNMP traps to HP Operations Manager.

Enabling SNMP Traps on EMC Celerra

Figure 7 shows a high-level overview of the process to enable SNMP traps on EMC Celerra.

Figure 7. Enabling SNMP Traps on EMC Celerra


Celerra network servers generate events in response to specific changes in the state of the system caused by a

command, error, or some other condition that might require action by an administrator. The following are key items

to monitor for EMC Celerra. These provide an effective balance of events relating to the performance of the

Celerra storage system, as well as its overall availability and capacity.

Event Category Events Statuses

Array subsystem Array state change

Array configuration change

Not present

Unknown

Offline

Write disabled

Failed

Environmental (temperature) Temperature warning Excessive temperature detected

File system Percentage full threshold Actual value

Device Device state change

Device mask database change

Device name change

Cache change

Not present

Unknown

Offline

Failed

Disk Disk state change Not present

Offline

Failed

Write disabled

Data Mover State change Failed

Refer to Configuring Celerra Events and Notifications – Technical Module for more information on configuring

SNMP or customizing SNMP events for EMC Celerra.

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-009-973.pdf


Monitoring EMC CLARiiON

EMC CLARiiON arrays support SNMP by sending SNMP traps to HP Operations Manager.

Enabling SNMP Traps on EMC CLARiiON

Figure 8 shows a high-level overview of the process to enable SNMP traps on EMC CLARiiON.

Figure 8. Enabling SNMP on EMC CLARiiON

After you enable and configure SNMP and select all the EMC CLARiiON storage-related events to monitor, the

system automatically forwards the SNMP traps to the SNMP Network Management System to be rolled up into

HP Operations Manager for event monitoring.


EMC CLARiiON arrays are capable of generating events in response to specific changes in the state of the

storage system caused by an error or some other condition, such as a threshold limit reached that might require

action by an administrator. The following are key items to monitor for an EMC CLARiiON array. These provide an

effective balance of events relating to the performance of the EMC CLARiiON storage system, as well as its

overall availability and capacity.

Special Threshold Monitoring Condition: Virtual provisioning is a critical area to monitor with regard to

thresholds for EMC CLARiiON storage environments. Pay close attention to monitoring thin pools and their used

and free capacity. It is vital that thin pools contain available data device capacity to avoid a pool full condition,

which occurs when thin devices bound to an oversubscribed thin pool have free capacity, but the underlying thin

pool is full. The reaction of hosts to a pool full condition varies, as is documented in the Host Connectivity guides

that EMC publishes for each open systems platform.




Not present

Unknown

Offline

Write disabled

Failed

Environmental (temperature) Temperature warning Excessive temperature detected

Device pool % pool state change

% pool utilization is now %u percent

Actual value logged

Service processor Service processor state change Not present

Unknown

Offline

Failed





Device name change

Cache change

Not present

Unknown

Offline

Failed


Offline

Failed

Write disabled

Refer to Unisphere Management and Administrator documentation for additional information on customizing

SNMP events for CLARiiON.

Monitoring EMC Symmetrix

The EMC Symmetrix® VMAX array supports SNMP. Using SNMP traps on the VMAX requires the EMC Solutions

Enabler, which has an event daemon (storevntd) that monitors EMC Symmetrix operations by detecting and

reporting EMC Symmetrix events. The event daemon:

Continually collects Symmetrix event information in near real time

Filters the events by severity and type

Maps events into SNMP traps

Sends events to a specified host running an SNMP trap client

For integration and monitoring of these events, the SNMP trap client is the host running HP Network Node

Manager and SNMP Management Services.

Enabling SNMP Traps on EMC Symmetrix

Figure 9 shows a high-level overview of the process to enable SNMP traps on EMC Symmetrix.

Figure 9. Enabling SNMP on EMC Symmetrix



The following are key events to monitor for EMC Symmetrix V-MAX. These events provide an effective balance of

events relating to the performance of the EMC Symmetrix storage system, as well as its overall availability and

capacity.

Special Threshold Monitoring Condition: Virtual provisioning is a critical area to monitor with regard to

thresholds for V-MAX storage environments. Pay close attention to monitoring thin pools and their used and free

capacity. It is vital that thin pools contain available data device capacity to avoid a pool full condition, which occurs

when thin devices bound to an oversubscribed thin pool have free capacity but the underlying thin pool is full. The

reaction of hosts to a pool full condition varies; it is documented in the Host Connectivity guides that EMC

publishes for each open systems platform.




Not present

Unknown

Offline

Write disabled

Failed

Environmental (temperature)

Temperature warning Excessive temperature detected

Device pool (virtual provision thin pools)

% pool state change

% pool utilization is now %u percent

Actual value logged

Service processors Service processor state change Not present

Unknown

Offline

Failed



Device name change

Cache change

Not present

Unknown

Offline

Failed


Offline

Failed

Write disabled

Refer to the Monitoring EMC Symmetrix Using the Solutions Enabler Event Daemon Technical Notes

documentation for additional information on enabling SNMP for the Symmetrix and customizing SNMP events.


Monitoring VMware vSphere

There are three options available for monitoring VMware vSphere using HP Operations Manager:

Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in for VMware v5, which also includes ESXi hardware health data

HP Operations Virtualization SPI v1.0 (a Smart Plug-in available through HP)

HP Operations integration to HP Insight Control, which provides a hardware-only view of the environment

This paper focuses on the Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in (SPI) for VMware as the recommended option, as it

provides a high level of functionality and integration for monitoring the individual vSphere elements. Veeam

nworks Smart Plug-in for VMware allows HP Operations Manager to monitor the vSphere component elements of

Vblock platforms effectively. The nworks SPI provides distributed monitoring and management of the VMware

infrastructure (vSphere and VI3) fully integrated into HP Operations Manager. It publishes VMware performance,

events, configuration, state, and topology directly into HP Operations Manager, giving you a common view across

your physical and virtual infrastructures.

Veeam SPI:

Allows monitoring of both the ESX server and its virtual machines and direct reporting to the Operations

Manager console

Allows monitoring in unison of the hypervisor layer and the virtual machine layer

Provides agent-less monitoring

Reduces TCO by eliminating the need for an agent-based virtual machine monitoring approach


The following table highlights some key events to monitor for the VMware vSphere virtualization layer. These

provide an effective balance of events relating to the performance of the ESX host and virtual machines,

availability, and capacity indicators for the virtualization layer.


ESX or VM Guest Disk Free % Disk free % capacity

ESX or VM Guest Memory Usage % guest memory utilization

ESX or VM CPU Status Running

Failed

ESX or VM Memory Status % physical memory available

ESX or VM Host Status Running

Failed

ESX or VM VM Status Running

Failed

ESX or VM Heartbeat Status Running

Failed

ESX or VM Host State Connected

Not Connected



ESX or VM VM Power State On

Off

ESX or VM Host Data Store State % capacity

A full listing of class descriptions and available metrics for virtual machines and ESX servers on HP Operations

Manager is available here:

http://www.veeam.com/support/metrics/openview.html

http://www.veeam.com/support/metrics/dictionary.html

Setting Up Your HP Operations Manager Containers

HP Operations Manager enables you to build containers with flexibility for individual layouts based on design and

scale considerations in your approach. For optimal operational visibility, consider building a container hierarchy

following these suggestions:

Create a top level Vblock container (for grouping into one monitoring unit)

Create individual Vblock containers within the top level container (each Vblock platform could be an

application-specific Vblock platform)

Group individual Vblock components within each Vblock container

To facilitate monitoring of Vblock platforms as a whole, organize each Vblock platform in the data center as a

container within HP Operations Manager. The premise behind the container is to build out a tree structure that

depicts Vblock platform as the top level with its individual components underneath. You can drill down to get

specific event information about each Vblock component, such as a specific blade, virtual machine, network state,

state of the storage array, and so forth.

Build your tree to meet your specific data center requirements for monitoring, keeping in mind that the ultimate

goal of the container is to simplify monitoring Vblock platforms by organizing all the components in a single

container.

Figure 10 shows a sample HP Operations Manager Vblock platform layout.

Figure 10. Sample HP Operations Manager Vblock Platform Layout




Important Considerations

Important considerations when building a container include:

HP Network Node Manager Discovery process

HP Operations Manager node editor

Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in

HP Network Node Manager Discovery

HP Network Node Manager plays a critical part in SNMP- enabled devices communicating with Vblock platforms.

HP Operations Manager will not allow SNMP devices and servers to communicate directly with the HP Operations

Manager console.

HP Operations Manager automatically builds a separate HP Network Node Manager tree with all the elements

that HP Network Node Manager discovers. You can then integrate elements or sub-trees of the HP Network Node

Manager Discovery tree into HP Operations Manager, depending on layout preference. It is important to verify the

HP Network Node Manager discovery and to move items from HP Network Node Manager into the required

Vblock containers. For example, HP Network Node Manager will not group and correlate all switches and routers

associated with a particular Vblock platform; instead, this must be a manual verify and move process.

As HP Network Node Manager Discovery builds a topographical view of the network, discovery time varies

depending on the network segment size. It is important to make sure your network is self-contained and that all

involved parties are aware of the process as the HP Network Node Manager discovery polling process can be

quite extensive.

HP Operations Manager Node Editor

The HP Operations Manager node editor is the primary tool for organizing nodes and devices within containers.

Once the HP Network Node Manager tree has been integrated into HP Operations Manager, all further container

layout creation is done using the HP Operations Manager node editor, which lets you build a tree-oriented

hierarchy based on an application or grouping condition (that is, Vblock platform, production servers, development

databases, and so forth). For more details on using the node editor, refer to the HP Operations Manager

documentation.

Veeam Smart Plug-in

HP Operations Manager builds a separate container for the Veeam Smart-Plug-in elements (virtual machines).

The Veeam Smart Plug-in allows for direct integration into the HP Operations Manager console. Once the

integration is complete, construct a Veeam SPI container using the HP Operations Manager node editor tool.

Elements from this Veeam SPI container can be combined with HP Network Node Manager Discovery container

elements to form a container.

The container described in Figure 10 is a superset of elements from the HP Network Node Manager Discovery

container and the Veeam Smart Plug-in container.


Conclusion

The capability to monitor data center availability, performance, and capacity through HP Operations Manager is

critical for data center operations staff to proactively address system issues, errors and outages. Organizations

can integrate Vblock Infrastructure Platforms easily and efficiently into their HP BTO framework to effectively

monitor the compute, network, storage, and virtualization components of the data centers by doing the following:

Outlining high-level steps for planning Vblock platform integration to HP Operations Manager

Leveraging HP Network Node Manager, SNMP, and Smart Plug-ins to integrate Vblock platform

monitoring with HP Operations Manager

Identifying what events to monitor for performance, availability, and capacity for Vblock platforms

Vblock platforms can be monitored through HP Operations Manager using a combination of standard SNMP

protocol and available third party Smart Plug-ins. Furthermore, by containerizing and treating Vblock platforms as

a whole, HP Operations Manager can provide the single view for monitoring data center assets.

By following the guidelines presented in this paper, organizations can leverage their investment in HP Operations

Manager to successfully monitor and manage Vblock Infrastructure Platforms.

Next Steps

To learn more about this and other solutions, contact a VCE partner or representative or visit www.vce.com.

http://www.vce.com/


References

Cisco Nexus

Cisco Nexus 5000 and Nexus 2000 MIBs Reference


Cisco MIB Locator

http://tools.cisco.com/ITDIT/MIBS/servlet/index

MIBs

http://www.cisco.com/public/sw-center/netmgmt/cmtk/mibs.shtml

Cisco UCS

Cisco UCS Manager GUI Configuration Guide, Release 1.3(1)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/1.3.1/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuratio

n_Guide_1_3_1.html

Cisco UCS Manager CLI Configuration Guide, Release 1.3(1)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/cli/config/guide/1.3.1/b_CLI_Config_Guide_1_3_1.

html

EMC Celerra

Configuring Celerra Events and Notifications v6.0 (EMC Powerlink user ID and password may be

required)


EMC CLARiiON

Configuring Celerra Events and Notifications:

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1//en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-009-973.pdf

EMC Symmetrix

Monitoring EMC Symmetrix Using the Solutions Enabler Event Daemon Technical Notes

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1//en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-010-522.pdf

HP Operations Manager

HP Operations Manager documentation (HP Passport user ID and passport required)

http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/manuals

Veeam

Veeam nworks Smart-Plug-in for VMware

http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-monitoring-hp-operations.html

Veeam nworks OpenView Names


Veeam nworks Metric Definitions



http://tools.cisco.com/ITDIT/MIBS/servlet/index

http://www.cisco.com/public/sw-center/netmgmt/cmtk/mibs.shtml








http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/manuals

http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-monitoring-hp-operations.html




ABOUT VCE

VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel,

accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce

the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock platform, delivers the

industry's first completely integrated IT offering with end-to-end vendor accountability. VCE's prepackaged

solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry

offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead

of integrating, validating and managing IT infrastructure.

For more information, go to www.vce.com.

Copyright © 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Vblock and the VCE logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company, LLC. and/or its affiliates in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

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