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© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 1
VBLOCK™ INFRASTRUCTURE
PLATFORMS – GUIDELINES FOR
MONITORING WITH HP OPERATIONS
MANAGER (HP OPENVIEW)
August 2011
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 2
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 3
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)
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 4
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 5
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 6
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 7
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 8
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 9
Note: This paper examines monitoring the infrastructure components of the Vblock platform (compute, network, storage, and virtualization).
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 10
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 11
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 12
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 13
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 14
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
Operational State (Fault)
Chassis Power On/Off
Temperature
Operational State (Fault)
Fabric Interconnect Operational State (Fault)
Fabric Interconnect Fan Operational State (Fault
Fabric Interconnect Modules Ports (Ether, FC) Link Up/Down
Link Failures (Number)
Operational State (Fault)
Fabric Interconnect Power Supply (PSU) Power On/Off
Operational State (Fault)
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 15
Key Events to Monitor
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
Key Events to Monitor
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 16
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
Key Events to Monitor
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 17
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.
Key Events to Monitor
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.
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
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 18
Event Category Events Statuses
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
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 19
Key Events to Monitor
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.
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
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 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
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 20
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
Key Events to Monitor
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.
Event Category Events Statuses
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 21
Event Category Events Statuses
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
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 22
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 23
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.
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 24
References
Cisco Nexus
Cisco Nexus 5000 and Nexus 2000 MIBs Reference
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/mib/reference/NX5000_MIBRef.html
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)
http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-009-973.pdf
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
http://www.veeam.com/support/metrics/openview.html
Veeam nworks Metric Definitions
http://www.veeam.com/support/metrics/dictionary.html
© 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 25
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.