Foglight for VMware 5.8 - User and Reference Guide

Rules

Foglight® for VMware allows you to create flexible rules that can be applied to complex, interrelated data from multiple sources within your distributed system. You can associate several different actions with a rule, configure a rule so that it does not fire repeatedly, and associate a rule with schedules to define when it should and should not be evaluated.

Different types of data can be used in rules, including registry variables, raw metrics, derived metrics, and topology object properties.

There are two types of rules in Foglight for VMware: simple rules and multiple-severity rules. A simple rule has a single condition, and can be in one of three states: Fire, Undefined, or Normal. A multiple-severity rule can have up to five severity levels: Undefined, Fatal, Critical, Warning, and Normal.

Rule conditions are regularly evaluated against monitoring data (metrics and topology object properties collected from your monitored environment and transformed into a standard format). Therefore, the state of the rule can change if the data changes. For example, if a set of monitoring data matches a simple rule’s condition, the rule enters the Fire state. If the next set does not match the condition, the rule exits the Fire state and enters the Normal state.

A rule condition is a type of expression that can be true or false. When it evaluates to true, the rule is said to fire, causing any actions that are associated with the rule or severity level to be performed. You can configure a rule to perform one or more actions upon entering or exiting each state. When a multiple-severity rule fires, an alarm also appears in Foglight for VMware.

For more information see the Foglight for VMware Administration and Configuration Help.

Foglight for VMware provides an effective monitoring solution for the VMware infrastructure. The rules included in Foglight for VMware alert you to virtual infrastructure problems.

When service degradations are detected, Foglight for VMware sends alerts to the event console. Optionally, Foglight for VMware can be configured to send emails, pager messages, or perform other actions you define. Performance data can be viewed, analyzed and reported using Foglight for VMware.

Foglight for VMware includes a number of predefined rules that capture the expert knowledge of our virtualization specialists and are used to monitor the health of your virtual infrastructure. Foglight for VMware allows you to modify these rules or create your own flexible rules that can be applied to complex, interrelated data from multiple sources within your distributed system.

In this , rule descriptions are organized into logical groupings. To see a rule description, select the appropriate grouping from the s listed below.

Many of the rules listed and described in this chapter have thresholds (standard deviations, utilization percentages, etc.) defined within them. Those thresholds are default values predefined in the registry.

Foglight for VMware includes the following groups of rules:

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the following views display alarms triggered by most rules included with Foglight for VMware: • Alarms List view • Alarms Overview • Action panel • Quick-View • Related Objects views • Summary tab • Virtual Environment Overview • VMware Explorer Primary view • Virtual Infrastructure view

Agent Rules

This section lists and describes the agent rules.

Rules in this section:

VMW Agent Data Updates

An alarm fires when the agent does not report on data (dataType) in the appropriate amount of time (timeDiffSecs).

VMWAgentDataUpdate

VMW Agent Messages

This rule converts agent messages into Foglight alarms.

VMWAgent