Module 8 – Lesson 5: Using Alarms Video Transcript
Module 8 – Lesson 5: Using Alarms Video Transcript
Slide 1
Welcome back! Let’s get started with Lesson 5: Using Alarms!
Slide 2
After completing this lesson, you should be able to meet the following objectives:
• Use predefined alarms in vCenter Server
• View and acknowledge alarms
• And Create custom alarms.
Slide 3
An alarm is a notification that is sent in response to an event or condition that occurs with an
object in the inventory.
You can acknowledge an alarm to let other users know that you take ownership of the issue.
For example, a VM has an alarm set to monitor CPU use. The alarm is configured to send an
email to an administrator when the alarm is triggered. The VM CPU use spikes, triggering the
alarm, which sends an email to the administrator. The administrator acknowledges the triggered
alarm to let other administrators know the problem is being addressed.
After you acknowledge an alarm, the alarm actions are discontinued, but the alarm does not get
cleared or reset when acknowledged. You reset the alarm manually in the vSphere Client to
return the alarm to a normal state.
Slide 4
You can access many predefined alarms for various inventory objects, such as hosts, virtual
machines, datastores, networks, and so on.
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Module 8 – Lesson 5: Using Alarms Video Transcript
Slide 5
You can edit predefined alarms, or you can make a copy of an existing alarm and modify the
settings as needed.
To make a copy of an alarm, select the alarm and click ADD.
Slide 6
If the predefined alarms do not address the event, state, or condition that you want to monitor,
define custom alarm definitions instead of modifying predefined alarms.
Slide 7
On the Name and Targets page, you can name the alarm, give it a description, and select the
type of inventory object that this alarm monitors.
You can create custom alarms for the following target types:
• Virtual machines
• Hosts, clusters, and data centers
• Datastores and datastore clusters
• Distributed switches and distributed port groups
• And vCenter Server.
Slide 8
An alarm rule must contain at least one trigger.
A trigger can monitor the current condition or state of an object, for example
• if a VM’s current snapshot is more than 2 GB,
• if a host is using 90 percent of its total memory,
• or if a datastore is disconnected from all hosts.
A trigger can monitor events that occur in response to operations occurring on a managed
object, for example
• if the health of a host’s hardware changes,
• if a license expires in the data center,
• or if a host leaves the distributed switch.
You configure the alarm trigger to show as a warning or critical event when the specified
criteria are met:
• You can monitor the current condition or state of virtual machines, hosts, and
datastores. Conditions or states include power states, connection states, and performance
metrics such as CPU and disk use.
• You can monitor events that occur in response to operations occurring with a managed
object in the inventory or vCenter Server itself. For example, an event is recorded each
time a VM (which is a managed object) is cloned, created, deleted, deployed, and
migrated.
Slide 9
You select and configure the events, states, or conditions that trigger the alarm.
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Module 8 – Lesson 5: Using Alarms Video Transcript
You must create a separate alarm definition for each trigger. The OR operator is not supported
in the vSphere Client. However, you can combine more than one condition trigger with the
AND operator.
Slide 10
You configure the notification method to use when the alarm is triggered. The methods are
sending an email, sending an SNMP trap, or running a script.
Slide 11
You can select and configure the events, states, or conditions to reset the alarm to normal.
Sometimes, as in this example, you can access only one option to reset the alarm.
Slide 12
On the Review page, the new alarm definition is enabled by default.
Slide 13
If you use email or SNMP traps as the notification method, you must configure vCenter Server
to support these notification methods. To configure email, specify the mail server FQDN or IP
address and the email address of the sender account.
You can configure up to four receivers of SNMP traps. They must be configured in numerical
order, and each SNMP trap requires a corresponding host name, port, and community.
Slide 14
You should now be able to meet the following objectives:
• Use predefined alarms in vCenter Server
• View and acknowledge alarms
• And Create custom alarms.
Slide 15
Which tools can Virtual Beans use to meet its goals for managing and monitoring the vSphere
environment? You can take a moment to match each Virtual Beans requirement with the
appropriate vSphere feature. We will provide our answers in the next slide.
Slide 16
To increase compute resources for business-critical workloads, particularly during peak months
you would use Shares, limits, and reservations;
To provide proactive recommendations to help avoid problems before they occur you would
use VMware Skyline;
To create monthly reports, for management, that contain graphs of VM resource usage you
would use vCenter Server performance charts;
To be notified when ESXi hosts experience high CPU and memory usage you would use
Alarms.
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Module 8 – Lesson 5: Using Alarms Video Transcript
Slide 17
Some key points from Lesson 8 are:
• An ESXi host uses memory overcommit techniques to allow the overcommitment of
memory while possibly avoiding the need to page memory out to disk.
• The VMkernel balances processor time to guarantee that the load is spread smoothly
across processor cores in the system.
• You can apply reservations, limits, and shares against a VM to control the amount of
CPU and memory resources granted.
• The key to interpreting performance data is to observe the range of data from the
perspective of the guest operating system, the virtual machine, and the host.
• And you use alarms to monitor the vCenter Server inventory objects and send
notifications when selected events or conditions occur.
Slide 18
This is the end of Module 8 and the Lesson 5 Lecture. The Labs and Assignments associated
with this Module are as follows:
• Lab 19: Controlling VM Resources,
• Lab 20: Monitoring Virtual Machine Performance,
• Lab 21: Using Alarms,
• And the Module 8 Quiz: Resource Management and Monitoring.
If you have any questions, please contact your Instructor. We will see you in the next Module
and thanks for watching!
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