Monitoring HP VMware ESXi Hosts with HP Systems Insight Manager (HPSIM)

Solution

Note: Ideally require HPSIM 6 or better for monitoring HP ESXi 4.1 hosts. HPSIM 5.3 with SP1 will still allow monitoring of pretty much everything including the physical disks, and the screenshots from the post are from a HPSIM 5.3 with SP1 (Build C.05.03.01.00) box. Also - for full reporting - the ESXi host must either be built with the HP ESXi build, or the standard VMware build with HP Offline Bundle installed.

1: Log in to HP SIM https://HPSIM Server:50000 with an authorized account

2: From the menu bar → Options → Events → Event Filter Settings...

Make sure that 'Accept unregistered events' is ticked

4: From the menu bar → Options → Discovery...

Create a new discovery task for a single system (untick the schedule box) and provide the ESXi host details

Click the 'Credentials...' button

Click on 'Show advanced protocol credentials'

On the 'Sign In' tab, enter the ESXi host root credentials

On the 'WBEM / WMI' tab

Enter the port → 5989

Enter the ESXi host root credentials

Click OK

5: Save the discovery task

6: Run the newly created discovery task and wait for it to complete

7: Wait a bit longer for HPSIM to process the server and we are done!

The discovery process will also add all the guests on the host into the HPSIM database.

Via 'Properties' on the System tab, health status can be checked

Troubleshooting:

i: Make sure that the HPSIM server can telnet to port 5989 of the ESXi host

ii: If – after 15 minutes of discovery – no information regarding the server has been populated, try re-entering the system credentials (system page → Tools & Links → System Credentials → Edit system credentials....)

Credits:

http://breathalize.co.uk/2010/04/15/hp-sim-and-esxi-hardware-monitoring/

Tag: monitoring ESXi 4.1 host hardware without SNMP for free (HPSIM is available as a free download)