EnSpeed VM Orchestrator for VMware GSX and VMware ESX Server Monitoring

The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator may be used for monitoring physical machines running VMware Server (previously GSX) or VMware ESX. It provides full GUI Configuration for all tasks:

• Network configuration of the Orchestrator (IP Address, Netmask, etc.)
• Configuring outgoing email services (for email notification)
• Adding Physical Machines (VM Servers) to the Orchestrator
• Specifying disks in the physical machines to be monitored

Requirements of the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator VMware Virtual Appliance:

• VM Host Computer
  
  1. VMware Virtual Machine Monitor Software
     1. VMware Server with VMWare Server Console on Linux/Windows XP
     2. VMware Player on Linux/Windows XP
  2. 512M of free memory
  3. 10 Gigabytes or more of disk space
  
  
• A DHCP or Static IP Address for the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator Virtual Appliance


1. IP Address, Netmask, Default gateway and DNS Server information,
2. or, a DHCP Server that will hand out an IP address to this Virtual Appliance
• Outgoing Email Facility (for Email Notifications only)


1. A Server for forwarding outgoing email to.
2. or, the IP address assigned to the VM Orchestrator must be allowed to send email out. Due to the scourge of span, many commercial ISPs block outgoing email ports from dynamically assigned IP addresses.

INSTALLATION:

1	Download the EnSpeedVMOrchestrator file.
2	Unrar or Untar it into a directory with at least 10 Gigabytes of free space
3	If this appliance is to be hosted on Windows, double click on the "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.vmx" file
4	If this appliance is being hosted in Linux/VMware Server, then register the vmx with the VMware server using the command "vmware-cmd -s register full_path_name_to_the_vmx_file". Use the VMware Server console (vmware-server-console) program that is supplied as part of the "vmware-server-linux-console" package from vmware. Please note that the vmware server web UI, i.e. the vmware-mui package does not work with this Virtual Appliance. The following is a screen capture with the Virtual Appliance running in Vmware Server under Windows XP SCREEN CAPTURE 1 Click here to view Enlarged Image
5	The Virtual Appliance starts up and displays the single configuration and status page. At this point, please configure networking for the Virtual Appliance. You may choose a DHCP Configuration as shown in Screen Capture 2 below, or a static IP address. SCREEN CAPTURE 2 Click here to view Enlarged Image
6	Once the Network Configuration is saved, and the web browser returns to the main page. Now you need to configure a certificate for SSL. Note that SSL is the only way to access the Orchestrator. http (port 80) is disabled
7	There are two ways to configure a certificate for SSL. You can configure a self-signed certificate, or use a Certificate Authority signed certificate for SSL access. A self signed certificate will cause browsers to display a warning message. To avoid this warning message, you need to purchase a certificate signed by a CA such as Verisign or Godaddy. The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has a web UI for generating a key, that needs to be sent to the CA for signing.
7.1	To configure a self signed certificate, replace the string "EnSpeed VM Orchestrator" with a string that describes your server, and press the "Generate Self Signed Certificate and Restart Apache SSL" button. This is a one time action that you will not need to repeat, unless the IP address or name of your Orchestrator changes. A self signed certificate will cause browsers to display a warning message. To avoid this warning message, you need to purchase a certificate signed by a CA such as Verisign or Godaddy. The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has a web UI for generating a key, that needs to be sent to the CA for signing.
7.2	When browsers access an EnSpeed VM Orchestrator configured with a Self Signed SSL Certificate, a warning message is displayed. In order to avoid this warning dialog, a certificate signed by a CA such as Verisign or Godaddy must be used. The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has a web UI that can be used for generating a key to send to the CA, and for entering the Certificate returned by the CA into the Orchestrator.
8	Open a web browser and point it at the https URL for the IP Address assigned above, and your EnSpeed VM Orchestrator login is displayed. Use the login admin with password admin to access your new EnSpeed VM Orchestrator SCREEN CAPTURE 4 Click here to view Enlarged Image
9	Adding Physical Machines to the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator The next step in monitoring VMware servers is to add these physical machines to the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator. This link, part of the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator User Guide, describes how to add Physical Machines. Note that in addition to monitoring of VMware GSX and ESX, the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator provides a great deal of extra functionality for Xen VMs. The next version of the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator will make these extra functions available for VMware VMs.
10	Once the VMware Server or VMWare ESX machines are added to the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator's Physical Machines database, the integrated Nagios monitoring system is automatically configured to collect statistics and to monitor the memory and disk of these servers. The following two methods can be used to access the monitoring functionality: (a) indicates the button used to access the Integrated Nagios Monitoring function (b) indicates the link used to access just the graphs for a single host SCREEN CAPTURE 5 Click here to view Enlarged Image
11	Pressing the "Integrated Nagios Monitoring" button in the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator's "Physical Machines" tab leads to the Nagios main screen. All regular Nagios functions are available from this screen. Note that you will need to enter you login and password (default of 'admin', 'admin') one more time. This is for security. SCREEN CAPTURE 4 Click here to view Enlarged Image
12	Pressing the "Graphs..." link next to each Physical Machine (VM Server) in the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator's "Physical Machines" tab leads to the integrated graph display. The state of memory, and the state of each disk is displayed in this screen. SCREEN CAPTURE 4 Click here to view Enlarged Image
13	Finally, in order to make Email Notifications work, do the following: From the VMware Console for the VM Orchestrator, setup the server to forward Outgoing Email to. By default, the Orchestrator is configured to send mail out directly. However, some ISPs require you to configure your email to be forwarded to a specific email server. The Web UI in the Orchestrator's Console provides you with a simple way to do this. Next, in the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator Summary View tab, there is a link called "Change Admin Email". This is used to configure an email address to send Email Alerts to.