1. Using Oracle Infrastructure Monitoring
  2. Discovery
  3. Add VMware vCenter

Add VMware vCenter

You can add VMware vCenter entities using the Add Entity UI or using the cloud agent command line interface (omcli) with the appropriate JSON files.

Step 1: Prepare VMware vCenter for monitoring.

Prerequisites

In order for the Cloud Agent to be able to collect all the metrics for the Oracle Management Cloud VMware entities, you should:

  1. Install VMware tools on the VM host.

  2. Set the statistics level to one (1).

Credentials: username/password required to access VMware vCenter (use Administrator role).

Example:

username=Administrator@vsphere.local / password=<admin_pw>

Certificates:

You need to explicitly add the vCenter certificate to the Agent's JKS:

Example:

<jdk>/bin/keytool -importcert -file <vmware-vsphere-certificate> -alias vmware -keystore $T_WORK/agentStateDir/sysman/config/montrust/AgentTrust.jks -storepass welcome

How to extract certificate from vCenter:

openssl s_client -showcerts -connect <hostname>:443

Discovery properties:

How to retrieve VMware vCenter Server Instance UUID to be passed in at discovery time through the entity property omc_virtual_mgmt_system_id using VMware PowerCLI:

Example:
PS C:\> $vcenter = Connect-viserver vcsa-01a.corp.local -User Administrator@vsphere.local -Password admin_pw
PS C:\> $vcenter.InstanceUuid
d322b019-58d4-4d6f-9f8b-d28695a716c0

Step 2: Add the VMware vCenter using omcli and the Appropriate JSON Files

  1. Download and extract the required JSON file(s) from the master JSON zip file. See the table below for the specific JSON files you'll need.
  2. Edit the file(s) and specify the requisite properties shown below.
    VMware vCenter JSON Files and Properties

    Definition File: omc_vmware_vcenter_sample.json

    • omc_virtual_mgmt_system_id: VMware vCenter Server Instance UUID
    • omc_virtual_type: VMware
    • omc_dispatch_url: vmware-https://<Fully qualified host name or IP address of vCenter>/sdk/vimservice

    Credential File: omc_vmware_vcenter_sample_creds.json

    • username: VMware vCenter username (use Administrator role).
    • password: VMware vCenter password (use Administrator role).
  3. Add the entity using omcli.
    omcli add_entity agent DEFINITION_FILE [-credential_file CREDENTIAL_FILE [-encryption_method_gpg]]
  4. Verify the status of the newly added entity. 
    omcli status_entity agent DEFINITION_FILE

See step 4. Adding Entities to Your Service of Add Entities Using JSON Files for more information.

Step 3: (Optional but recommended) Set up alerts.

To enable lights-out monitoring, you can set up alert rules to generate alerts and send notifications if your entities have performance issues.

See Set Up Alert Rules and Set Up Alert Thresholds and Notifications.

Troubleshooting

If you run into any issues regarding discovery or monitoring of VMware vCenter, see the following: