Cloud Based Systems Monitoring with LogicMonitor – Configuration Example for VMware vCenter

Introduction

LogicMonitor is a powerful but easy and simple to setup, cloud based systems monitoring solution (Monitoring as a service - MaaS), and all you need from your site or a customers site, is SSL access from an on-site collector to LogicMonitor's Cloud Data Center.

The list of hosts and applications that LogicMonitor can monitor is massive and constantly growing, and includes:

Cisco, Citrix Netscalers, Citrix XenServer, Databases, Dell Hardware Health, ESX Servers and vSphere vCenters, F5 Big IP Clusters, FreeBSD monitoring, HP Hardware Health, HP P4000/Lefthand SANs, IPMI Support, Java Applications, Kemp LoadMaster Load Balancers, Linux and Unix, Monitoring Log Files for Application Response Times, NetApp, Netscreen, pfSense Firewalls, Postfix, Sensatronics, SNMP, Sonicwall Firewalls, Specific URLs or Webpages, Varnish HTTP Accelerator, Web Servers, Windows, ….

Walkthrough

This following walkthrough assumes that you have either a trial version of LogicMonitor (to obtain, go to www.logicmonitor.com and click on the 'TRY IT FREE' button) or paid for version, and have already run through the initial first time login setup wizard. The configuration example is for a new customer site, with the collector installed on the VMware vCenter to be monitored.

1. Logon to the VMware vCenter and point your web browser to http://YOURCOMPANYNAME.logicmonitor.com and login.

2. Go to the Settings Tab in the WebUI → Collectors → and click the Add button

3. Adding Collector: Introduction → click Next

4. Adding Collector: Download collector → choose Windows collector → and for now click Yes to the “Will you use this collector to monitor other Windows hosts?”

Click on the Download Windows collector link

Click Run if receive the File Download - Security Warning

Click Run if then receive an Internet Explorer – Security Warning

And the LogicMonitor Collector – InstallShield Wizard will start

5. LogicMonitor Collector – InstallShield Wizard

Enter credentials as desired (for just monitoring VMware vCenter and guests, the use LocalSystem Account will be fine) → and click Next > → and click Install → then click Finish

6. Adding Collector: Download collector → click Next

7. Adding Collector: Collector Down Notification Setting → accept defaults for now and click Next

8. Adding Collector: Verification → tick the 'The collector is installed' box – this should come back with the 'Congratulations – the collector … has successfully registered' → then click Finish

Click OK to the 'Do you want to add a host for monitoring?'

9. Add Host Wizard: Host Name → enter host name or IP address and click Next

10. Add Host Wizard: Monitoring collector → select the collector that will monitor the host and click Next

11. Add Host Wizard: Network connectivity → if everything is okay, click Next

12. Add Host Wizard: Finish → click Submit → and for now click 'No, Thanks' to the 'Do you want to add another host now?'

13. From the Hosts Tab in the WebUI → select the newly added vCenter → select the System Tab to verify that the vCenter has been detected as a VMware vCenter

14. From the Host Tab in the WebUI → select the newly added vCenter → click on the More and Edit … in the top right of the WebUI

15. Edit host properties → click the Add button → add the Properties esx.user and esx.pass providing the username and password of an account that has read-only access as defined from the topmost level down the vCenter infrastructure hierarchy (security recommendation is for read-only access account) → and click Submit

And we're done! 

Note: To monitor ESX host hardware requires the hosts to be added in separately.

LogicMonitor out-of-the-box monitors the following metrics from vCenter server:

ESX Cluster – Available CPU Resources, Available Memory, Failover Status

ESX Datastore – Disk Usage

ESX Host – CPU Usage, Disk Data Rates, Disk Latency, Disk Operations, Memory, Memory Shared, Memory Status, Memory Swap Rate, Memory Usage Percent, Network Data Rates, Network Packet Rates, Network Packets Dropped, Uptime

ESX Virtual Machines: Overview – VM Local Disk Operations, VM Memory Usage, VM Virtual Disk Operations, VM CPU Ready

ESX Virtual Machines – CPU, CPU Ready, Disk Data Rates, Disk Operations, Memory – VMKernel Swap Rates, Memory Usage, Memory Used Percent, Network Data Rates, Network Packet Rates, Provisioned Disk Usage, Uptime, Virtual Disk Latency

Further information

www.logicmonitor.com

help.logicmonitor.com

help.logicmonitor.com/notes-for-monitoring-specific-types-of-hosts/