VMware Aria Operations provides VM OS Uptime in seconds, how do we convert that to minutes, or hours, or days? Super Metrics!
You want to know the average VM CPU Usage for all VMs in a vCenter, how can we determine that? Super Metrics!
You'd like to know ESXi Host properties/metrics and Cluster properties/metrics related to VMs, how can I relate them? Super Metrics!
There are a couple blogs I'd like to highlight before digging in, the first is from VMware Principal Technical Account Manager Varghese Philipose and can be found here. The second is a three-part video series and can be found here. Take a look when you have time, they are great resources!
It's important to note that Super Metric creation has gotten more intuitive over the years, with the most recent improvements being introduced in Aria Operations 8.10.
As of Aria Operations 8.10.2, Super Metrics have moved to the left hand pane under Configure.
The creation process has been streamlined as well. Go to Configure - Super Metrics - ADD and give your new Super Metric a Name and Description.
My Super Metric is going to calculate VM OS Uptime in Days, click NEXT.
Here you will associate the Super Metric with an Object Type, in my case VMs. Click NEXT.
We will now define the formula for the Super Metric. If you click in the canvas it will prompt you for your formula. Here's a clip of me creating mine.
The first step is to select Function, Object Type, Object, or THIS:
Function: average, max, min, sum, etc.
Object Type: Cluster, Host System, Virtual Machine, etc.
Object: all vROps aware objects
THIS: the object type you chose in the previous step, in my case Virtual Machine
You will then be prompted for the Metric, Property, Metric Type, or Property Type. In my case, I've selected Metric and searched for the one I want: System|OS Uptime. This defines the formula for us.
This is our base formula, now let's convert it to Days. OS Uptime is given in seconds, so to convert to Days, we will divide by 60 (seconds to minutes), again by 60 (minutes to hours), then 24 (hours to days). It'll look like this.
Now, how can we confirm our formula works? VALIDATE and PREVIEW!
Clicking VALIDATE will confirm your formula, a valid one is shown on the left, while an invalid formula is shown on the right.
Once validated, we can preview our new Super Metric with the PREVIEW Button. Give it an object to look for, in my case a VM, and you'll see the Super Metric.
You can define the units for this Super Metric with the Units (Optional) drop down, in my case Days. Click NEXT.
The final step is to enable your Super Metric in a Policy, or several Policies. Once done, click CREATE. After a few minutes, your new Super Metric will be calculated on all your VMs, let's look at one.
There are many Super Metrics defined against VMs in my environment, but the one we're interested in is VM OS Uptime in Days, which in this case is almost 13 days. You can now use this metric in Dashboards, Views, and more. I've closed mine to create two more Super Metrics: VM OS Uptime in Minutes (on the left) and VM OS Uptime in Hours (on the right).
VMware Aria Operations Super Metrics are a powerful way to capture exactly what you want, use them!