Selecting a subset of vCenter inventory to monitor in vRealize Operations

Products

VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

The licenses you have purchased determine the number of virtual machines that you can monitor with vRealize Operations. If the inventory of the vCenter Server system that you want to monitor has more virtual machines than your license allows, or if you want to monitor a subset of that inventory, you can reduce the number of objects to be monitored.

Environment

VMware vRealize Operations Manager 7.0.x
VMware vRealize Operations Manager 7.5.x
VMware vRealize Operations 8.0.x
VMware vRealize Operations Manager 6.6.x
VMware vRealize Operations 8.x
VMware vRealize Operations Manager 6.7.x

Resolution

vRealize Operations monitors all the virtual machines that the collection user has read access to. To comply with the licensing terms and monitor a supported number of objects rather than the entire vCenter Server inventory, you can limit the permissions of the collection user to the set of virtual machines and other objects in one or more datacenters or clusters.

VMware supports providing access to all of the objects in a datacenter, cluster, or standalone host. You cannot provide access to individual virtual machines because selecting a subset of virtual machines that share the same underlying physical layer results in a mismatch of metric values.

For example, if a host has two virtual machines and you provide access to only one of the virtual machines, the host workload does not match the sum of the virtual machine workload because the sum accounts for only one virtual machine. VMware recommends providing the collection user access to all of the datastores and networks that are visible to the selected datacenters, clusters, and standalone hosts. Do not share these datastores and networks with datacenters, clusters, or standalone hosts that the collection user does not have access to.

As a best practice before you assign a collection user, verify that the user has read access to the objects that you want to monitor.

Note:

You should apply permission changes before initial discovery (installation), or the objects continue to be displayed in the interface and count towards the license limit.
As a security precaution, do not assign the vSphere Administrator user as the collection user.

A new role needs to be created that includes the appropriate privileges.

To add the new role:

Use the vSphere Client to connect to the vCenter Server system that you want to monitor.
Click Home > Roles.
Right-click the Read-only role and select Clone.
Rename the new role.
Right-click the new role and select Edit Role.
Expand Global and select the check box Health.
Expand Profile-driven storage and select the check box Profile-driven storage view.

Note: In older versions of vCenter Server, the Profile-driven storage item might not exist.
Expand Storage Views and select View option.
Click the OK button.

To provide access to a cluster:

Use the vSphere Client to connect to the vCenter Server system that you want to monitor.
Click Home > Inventory > Hosts and Clusters.
Right-click the cluster and click Add Permission.
Click Add to identify the user or group to assign a role and click OK.
Select the new role from the Assigned Role dropdown.
Select Propagate to Child Objects.
Click OK to close the Assign Permissions dialog box.
Click Home > Inventory > Datastores.
On the Permissions tab for the datastores that are associated with the clusters to monitor, right-click the same user and click Properties.
Select Read-only as the role and click OK.
In the vRealize Operations UI under Administration > Solutions, the appropriate user created earlier can be specified as the collection user under the respective adapter instance.

You can follow a similar process to provide access to a datacenter. Granting access to a datacenter provides access to any datastores referenced by hosts within the datacenter. Note that the permission must be applied at the datacenter level and propagated to any child views (such as networking objects), as in the preceding procedure.

Note: The permissions have to be set in the Hosts and Clusters view and the Virtual Machines and Templates view for the collection to occur. The above information applies to the vRealize Operations Appliance which has not performed any discovery yet on the objects of the vCenter Inventory. When the appliance has discovered the objects, it continues to show up in the list of objects and consume licenses.

For related information, see Minimum Collection User Permissions in vRealize Operations Manager 6.x and later

To exclude all virtual machines:

Navigate to Administration > Solutions > Cloud Accounts and expand the Advanced Settings menu
Change the Maximum Number of Virtual Machines Collected value to 0

Note: A host with no monitored Virtual Machines will still consume an OSI license, as the host itself is being monitored by vRealize Operations

To exclude a subset of Virtual Machines:

Navigate to Administration > Inventory
Using shift or alt -select all of the objects you wish to exclude
Click Start Maintenance from the toolbar of buttons near the top of the page

Notes:
Objects you place in maintenance mode will continue to be in maintenance mode until you select them and click End Maintenance.

You can automate this as needed with custom groups, maintenance schedules, and policies to keep certain Virtual Machines always in maintenance.