Module 8 – Lesson 3: Resource Monitoring Tools Video Transcript

Module 8 – Lesson 3: Resource Monitoring Tools Video Transcript

Slide 1
Welcome back! We will now begin Lesson 3: Resource Monitoring Tools!

Slide 2
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Describe the performance-tuning methodology
• Identify resource-monitoring tools
• And Use vCenter Server performance charts to view performance.

Slide 3
The best practice for performance tuning is to take a logical step-by-step approach:
• For a complete view of the performance situation of a VM, use monitoring tools in the
guest operating system and in vCenter Server.
• Identify the resource that the VM relies on the most. This resource is most likely to
affect the VM’s performance if the VM is constrained by it.
• Give a VM more resources or decrease the resources of other VMs.
• After making more of the limiting resource available to the VM, take another
benchmark and record changes.
Be cautious when making changes to production systems because a change might negatively
affect the performance of the VMs.

Slide 4
Tools in the guest operating system are available from sources external to VMware and are
used in various VMware applications. Many tools used outside of the guest OS are made

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available by VMware for use with vSphere and other applications. A partial list of these
resource-monitoring tools is shown on the slide.

Slide 5
To monitor performance in the guest operating system, use tools that you are familiar with,
such as Windows Task Manager.
Windows Task Manager helps you measure CPU and memory use in the guest operating
system.
The measurements that you take with tools in the guest operating system reflect resource usage
of the guest operating system, not necessarily of the VM itself.

Slide 6
VMware Tools includes a library of functions called the Perfmon DLL. With Perfmon, you can
access key host statistics in a guest VM. Using the Perfmon performance objects (VM
Processor and VM Memory), you can view actual CPU and memory usage and observed CPU
and memory usage of the guest operating system.
For example, you can use the VM Processor object to view the % Processor Time counter,
which monitors the VM’s current virtual processor load. Likewise, you can use the Processor
object and view the % Processor Time counter (not shown), which monitors the total use of the
processor by all running processes.

Slide 7
The esxtop utility is the primary real-time performance monitoring tool for vSphere:
• It can be run from the host’s local vSphere ESXi Shell as esxtop,
• It can be run remotely from vSphere CLI as resxtop,
• And it works like the top performance utility in Linux operating systems. In this
example, you enter lowercase c and uppercase V to view CPU metrics for VMs.
You can run the esxtop utility by using vSphere ESXi Shell to communicate with the
management interface of the ESXi host. You must have root user privileges.

Slide 8
Data on a wide range of metrics is collected at frequent intervals, processed, and archived in the
vCenter Server database. You can access statistical information through command-line
monitoring utilities or by viewing performance charts in the vSphere Client.

Slide 9
You can access overview and advanced performance charts in the vSphere Client.
Overview performance charts show the performance statistics that VMware considers most
useful for monitoring performance and diagnosing problems.
Depending on the object that you select in the inventory, the performance charts provide a
quick visual representation of how your host or VM is performing.

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Slide 10
In the vSphere Client, you can customize the appearance of advanced performance charts.
Advanced charts have the following features:
• More information than overview charts: Point to a data point in a chart to display details
about that specific data point.
• Customizable charts: You can change chart settings. Save custom settings to create your
own charts.
• And you can save data to an image file or a spreadsheet.
To customize advanced performance charts, select Advanced under Performance. Click the
Chart Options link in the Advanced Performance pane.

Slide 11
Real-time information is information that is generated for the past hour at 20-second intervals.
Historical information is generated for the past day, week, month, or year, at varying
specificities.
By default, vCenter Server has four archiving intervals: day, week, month, and year. Each
interval specifies a length of time that statistics are archived in the vCenter Server database.
You can configure which intervals are used and for what period of time.
You can also configure the number of data counters that are used during a collection interval by
setting the collection level.
Together, the collection interval and the collection level determine how much statistical data is
collected and stored in your vCenter Server database.
For example, using the table, past-day statistics show one data point every 5 minutes, for a total
of 288 samples. Past-year statistics show 1 data point per day, for 365 samples.
Real-time statistics are not stored in the database. They are stored in a flat file on ESXi hosts
and in memory on vCenter Server instances. ESXi hosts collect real-time statistics only for the
host or the VMs that are available on the host. Real-time statistics are collected directly on an
ESXi host every 20 seconds.
If you query for real-time statistics, vCenter Server queries each host directly for the data.
vCenter Server does not process the data at this point. vCenter Server only passes the data to
the vSphere Client.
On ESXi hosts, the statistics are kept for 30 minutes, after which 90 data points are collected.
The data points are aggregated, processed, and returned to vCenter Server. vCenter Server then
archives the data in the database as a data point for the day collection interval.
To ensure that performance is not impaired when collecting and writing the data to the
database, cyclical queries are used to collect data counter statistics. The queries occur for a
specified collection interval. At the end of each interval, the data calculation occurs.

Slide 12
Depending on the metric type and object, performance metrics are displayed in different types
of charts, such as bar charts and pie charts. Bar charts display storage metrics for datastores in a
selected data center. Each datastore is represented as a bar in the chart. Each bar displays
metrics based on the file type: virtual disks, other VM files, snapshots, swap files, and other
files.

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Pie charts display storage metrics for a single object, based on the file types or VMs. For
example, a pie chart for a datastore can display the amount of storage space occupied by the
VMs that take up the largest space.

Slide 13
In a line chart, the data for each performance counter is plotted on a separate line in the chart.
For example, a CPU chart for a host can contain a line for each of the host's CPUs. Each line
plots the CPU's usage over time.

Slide 14
Stacked charts display metrics for the child objects that have the highest statistical values. All
other objects are aggregated, and the sum value is displayed with the term Other. For example,
a host’s stacked CPU usage chart displays CPU usage metrics for the five VMs on the host that
are consuming the most CPU resources. The Other amount contains the total CPU usage of the
remaining VMs. The metrics for the host itself are displayed in separate line charts. By default,
the 10 child objects with the highest data counter values appear.

Slide 15
Per-VM stacked graphs are available only for hosts.

Slide 16
In the vSphere Client, you can save data from the advanced performance charts to a file in
various graphics formats or in Microsoft Excel format. When you save a chart, you select the
file type and save the chart to the location of your choice.

Slide 17
Performance charts graphically display CPU, memory, disk, network, and storage metrics for
devices and entities managed by vCenter Server.
In vCenter Server, you can determine how much or how little information about a specific
device type is displayed. You can control the amount of information a chart displays by
selecting one or more objects and counters.
An object refers to an instance for which a statistic is collected. For example, you might collect
statistics for an individual CPU, all CPUs, a host, or a specific network device.
A counter represents the actual statistic that you are collecting. An example is the amount of
CPU used or the number of network packets per second for a given device.

Slide 18
The statistics type refers to the measurement that is used during the statistics interval and is
related to the unit of measurement.
The statistics type is one of the following:
• Rate: Which is the value over the current statistics interval
• Delta: Is the change from the previous statistics interval
• And Absolute: Is absolute value (independent of the statistics interval).

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For example, CPU usage is a rate, CPU ready time is a delta, and memory active is an absolute
value.

Slide 19
Data is displayed at different specificities according to the historical interval. Past-hour
statistics are shown at a 20-second specificity, and past-day statistics are shown at a 5-minute
specificity. The averaging that is done to convert from one time interval to another is called
rollup.
Different rollup types are available. The rollup type determines the type of statistical values
returned for the counter:
• Average: The data collected during the interval is aggregated and averaged.
• Minimum: The minimum value is rolled up.
• And Maximum: The maximum value is rolled up.
The minimum and maximum values are collected and displayed only in collection level 4.
Minimum and maximum rollup types are used to capture peaks in data during the interval. For
real-time data, the value is the current minimum or current maximum. For historical data, the
value is the average minimum or average maximum.
For example, the following information for the CPU usage chart shows that the average is
collected at collection level 1 and that the minimum and maximum values are collected at
collection level 4:
• Counter: Is usage
• The Unit: Is in percentage,
• The Rollup Type: is Average (Minimum/Maximum)
• And the Collection Level: is 1
Statistics levels include summation and latest:
• Summation: The collected data is summed. The measurement displayed in the
performance chart represents the sum of data collected during the interval.
• Latest: The data that is collected during the interval is a set value. The value displayed
in the performance chart represents the current value. For example, if you look at the
CPU Used counter in a CPU performance chart, the rollup type is summation. So, for a
given 5-minute interval, the sum of all the 20-second samples in that interval is
represented.

Slide 20
You should now be able to meet the following objectives:
• Describe the performance-tuning methodology
• Identify resource-monitoring tools
• And Use vCenter Server performance charts to view performance.

This is the end of the Lesson 3 Lecture. If you have any questions, please contact your
Instructor. We will see you next time and thanks for watching!

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