VMWARE Virtual Servers

[Shaun Wells_4]

All, I'm currently running VMWARE ESX server, and have a number of virtual servers configured on this box. One thing I would like to do is to install the HP agents onto these servers so that I can monitor the activity and view the systems via SIM.. Has anybody attempted to do this, and is installing the agents the best way to do this, or are there other agents available for VMWARE virtual server. Thanks, Shaun.

[Jason Hindson]

Yo Shaun,

Try this link http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/71082-0-0-225-121.aspx.

If you're using GSX server there is no need to install the agents, which is the case at my place. But these agents are for the ESX VMware installations. Also, try searching this forum, this question has been asked a few times.

[David Claypool · Accepted solution]

Shaun:

Jason's answer is half right. The link he provided is for agents for the physical host running VMware ESX. The better link by the way is http://www.hp.com/servers/swdrivers which is the standard link for all ProLiant drivers / utilities / agents. VMware ESX is supported as one of the operating systems in the drop-down box.

Your question is about being able to manage guest virtual machines in HP SIM. Keep in mind that the Insight agents are specfically designed to work with the Advanced Systems Management Controller on a ProLiant, which obviously is not present in a virtual machine. In fact, since all the 'hardware' is simulated, there is very little that is of interest that can be collected from a VM. Because of that, we're able to get status and some limited data collection via SNMP and WBEM/WMI respectively.

The best practices document for VMware ESX has step-by-step instructions for doing this. See http://www.hp.com/servers/activeanswers --> Infrastructure --> Virtualization --> VMware ESX. The best practices guide has not been updated to 2.5 but the instructions for SIM are equally valid.

Additionally, with HP SIM 4.2 or later you have 2 licenses for 30-days for the HP Virtual Machine Management Pack. If you didn't install it with your initial install, it's well worth the effort to check out as it adds a number of administration features for VMware ESX, GSX and also Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, giving a single and consistent administration interface.