Application Monitoring with VMware vRealize Operations

We often talk about application monitoring with VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), there are 25 different applications that we can monitor.

Formal documentation for vROps application monitoring can be found here, but we're going to walk through how to do it in this blog.

First, deploy a Cloud Proxy (CP), formerly called the Application Remote Collector (ARC). The CP and ARC were merged into a single appliance in vROps 8.4. I've already deployed one for the purposes of this blog, but directions on how to do so can be found here. Once deployed it will look like this.

Next, configure your vCenter Adapters to collect through that CP.

Next, install the Telegraf Agent. Go to Home - Manage Applications - Monitor Applications - MANAGE AGENTS.

To be clear, the install package includes the Telegraf Agent, a Salt Minion, and OS Input Plugins. The Salt Minion does the actual Telegraf Agent install, sets up the OS Input Plugins, and discovers supported applications.

Find the VM you'd like to install on, single click it, then select the Install icon in the toolbar.

You will then be presented with three dialogue boxes asking for credentials and more.

Once started, the agent install looks like this.

Once installed, I upgraded the agent to the latest available by clicking the Update icon in the toolbar. Upon completion, I started the agent by clicking the green Start icon.

Notice the Agent status as well as the Services Discovered / Configured column, the Microsoft SQL Server application was discovered. Let's configure monitoring for it.

This is where we will configure the MSSQL monitoring, but first let's see what we get with the Telegraf Agent itself. The first three options in the Manage Service dropdown are: Remote Check, Monitor Windows Services, and Custom Script. We won't discuss these in great detail here, but more information can be found on this blog from VMware Technical Marketing Manager Matt Bradford.

The Telegraf Agent will first start providing OS metrics for the VM, which is shown as a child object called Windows OS. All OS metrics captured are documented here.

Back to the Telegraf Agent Inventory, select your VM, then select the Manage Service dropdown and choose MSSQL. You will then be prompted to provide MSSQL credentials for the MSSQL Instance you want to monitor. The necessary permissions for MSSQL (and others) can be found here.

Once done, click SAVE then CLOSE. The Telegraf Agent will now connect to the MSSQL Instance configured. The Manage Agents Inventory will look like this.

The MSSQL Instance will be a child object of the Windows OS object and the MSSQL Databases will be child objects of the MSSQL Instance.

Single click any of the objects here to show the metrics available for them. They are all documented here.

In addition to Service Discovery (which we previously discussed here), we can configure explicit Windows Services to be monitored for MSSQL via the Manage Service icon in the toolbar.

Once created, the Services will be child objects of the Windows OS object, each with their own metrics.

We now have monitoring on the VM, the guest-OS, the MSSQL related Windows Services, and MSSQL itself. Similar application monitoring can be done for any of the 25 different applications vROps supports.