VMWare Systems Performance Counters

VMWare systems are used as servers to provide virtualization solutions for businesses. Virtualization is a technology used to allow a single physical server to be divided into multiple virtual servers, each running its own operating system and applications. This provides a great deal of flexibility, allowing businesses to deploy applications quickly and easily while reducing costs. VMWare systems provide a wide range of features, from basic virtualization to more advanced features such as high availability, load balancing, and disaster recovery. Additionally, VMWare systems support multiple operating systems, making them a great choice for businesses that need to run multiple applications across different platforms.

VMWare system includes:

– vCenter: vCenter is a centralized management application for VMware vSphere environments. It provides features for managing virtual machines, networks, storage, and other components of a virtualized data center.

– ESX Server: ESX Server is a server virtualization platform that enables organizations to run multiple operating systems and applications on the same physical server. It is the foundation of VMware’s suite of virtualization products.

– VMWare Server: VMWare Server is a virtualization solution that enables organizations to run multiple operating systems and applications on a single physical server. It provides a web-based interface for managing virtual machines and is designed to be easier to use than other VMware products.

– VMWare virtual machines: VMWare virtual machines are virtual machines that are created, managed, and hosted within a VMWare environment. These virtual machines are isolated from each other, allowing for multiple operating systems, applications, and services to run in separate virtual environments. They can be used to create and manage a private cloud, develop and test applications, and even create a sandbox environment for disaster recovery purposes. By using VMWare, organizations can improve the efficiency and flexibility of their IT infrastructure while reducing costs.

Performance Counters of VMWare Systems

CPU

CPU Idle: Total time the CPU spent in an idle state
CPU Usage: CPU usage as a percentage during the interval
CPU Usage in MHz: CPU usage, as measured in megahertz, during the interval.
CPU Used: CPU time used
Reserved Capacity: Total CPU capacity reserved by virtual machines
CPU Ready: Percentage of time the virtual machine was ready, but could not be scheduled to run on the physical CPU
CPU System: Amount of time spent on system processes on each virtual CPU in the virtual machine
CPU Wait: Total CPU time spent in the wait state
Swap wait time. CPU time spent waiting for swap-in
Worst Case Allocation. Amount of CPU resources allocated to the virtual machine or resource pool based on the total cluster capacity and the resource configuration on the resource hierarchy.

Disk

Disk Bus Resets: Number of SCSI-bus reset commands issued during the collection interval
Disk Command Aborts: Number of SCSI commands aborted during the collection interval
Disk Command Latency: Average amount of time taken during the collection interval to process a SCSI command issued by the Guest OS to the virtual machine
Disk Command Issued: Number of SCSI commands issued during the collection interval
Disk Read Latency: Average amount of time taken during the collection interval to process a SCSI read command issued from the Guest OS to the virtual machine
Disk Read Rate: Average number of kilobytes read from the disk each second during the collection interval
Disk Read Requests: Number of disk reads during the collection interval
Disk Write Latency: Average amount of time taken during the collection interval to process a SCSI write command issued by the Guest OS to the virtual machine
Disk Write Rate: Average number of kilobytes written to disk each second during the collection interval
Disk Write Requests: Number of disk writes during the collection interval
Highest Disk Latency: Highest latency value across all disks used by the host
Kernel Disk Command Latency: Average amount of time, in milliseconds, spent by VMkernel processing each SCSI command
Kernel Disk Read Latency: Average amount of time, in milliseconds, spent by VMkernel processing each SCSI read command
Kernel Disk Write Latency: Average amount of time, in milliseconds, spent by VMkernel processing each SCSI write command
Physical Device Command Latency: Average amount of time, in milliseconds, to complete a SCSI command from the physical device
Physical Device Read Latency: Average amount of time, in milliseconds, to complete read from the physical device
Physical Device Write Latency: Average amount of time, in milliseconds, to write to the physical device
Queue Command Latency: Average amount of time spent in the VMkernel queue, per SCSI command, during the collection interval
Queue Read Latency: Average amount of time taken during the collection interval per SCSI read command in the VMkernel queue
Queue Write Latency: Average amount time taken during the collection interval per SCSI write command in the VMkernel queue

Management Agent

System resources used by the Service Console.

Memory Swap In: Amount of memory that is swapped in for the Service Console
Memory Swap Out: Amount of memory that is swapped out for the Service Console
Memory Swap Used: Sum of the memory swapped by all powered-on virtual machines on the host
Memory Used. Amount of total configured memory that is available for use

Memory

Memory Active: Amount of memory that is actively used, as estimated by VMkernel based on recently touched memory pages
Memory Balloon: Amount of memory allocated by the virtual machine memory control driver (vmmemctl), which is installed with VMWare Tools
Memory Balloon Target: Target value set by VMkernel for the virtual machine memory balloon size
Memory Consumed: Amount of memory consumed by a virtual machine, host, or cluster
Memory Granted: Amount of machine memory or physical memory that is mapped for a virtual machine or a host
Memory Heap: VMkernel virtual address space dedicated to VMkernel main heap and related data
Memory Heap Free: Free address space in the VMkernel main heap
% Memory Heap Free: Percent of free address space in the VMkernel main heap
Memory Overhead: Amount of machine memory allocated to a virtual machine beyond its reserved amount
Memory Shared: Amount of guest memory that is shared with other virtual machines, relative to a single virtual machine or to all powered-on virtual machines on a host
Memory Shared Common: Amount of machine memory that is shared by all powered-on virtual machines and vSphere services on the host
Memory State: One of four threshold levels representing the percentage of free memory on the host. The counter value determines swapping and ballooning behavior for memory reclamation.
Memory Swap In: Amount swapped-in to memory from disk
Memory Swap In Rate: Rate at which memory is swapped from disk into active memory during the interval
Memory Swap Out: Amount of memory swapped-out to disk
Memory Swap Out Rate: Rate at which memory is being swapped from active memory to disk during the current interval
Memory Swap Used: Amount of memory that is used by swap
Memory Swap Target: Target size for the virtual machine swap file
Memory Swapped: Current amount of guest physical memory swapped out to the virtual machine swap file by the VMkernel
Memory Unreserved: Amount of memory that is unreserved
Memory Used by VMkernel: Amount of machine memory used by VMkernel for core functionality, such as device drivers and other internal uses
Memory Zero. Memory that contains 0s only.
Worst Case Allocation. Memory allocation as calculated by the VMkernel scheduler based on current estimated demand and reservation, limit, and shares policies set for all virtual machines and resource pools in the host or cluster.

Network

Network Data Receive Rate: Average rate at which data was received during the interval
Network Data Transmit Rate: Average rate at which data was transmitted during the interval
Network Packets Received: Number of packets received during the interval
Network Packets Transmitted: Number of packets transmitted during the interval
Network Usage: Network utilization (combined transmit- and receive-rates) during the interval
droppedRx: Number of receive packets dropped during the collection interval
% droppedRx: Percent of receive packets dropped during the collection interval
droppedTx: Number of transmit packets dropped during the collection interval
% droppedTx. Percent of transmit packets dropped during the collection interval

Resource Group CPU

CPU Active: CPU Active over specified interval
CPU Running: CPU running average over a specified interval
CPU Throttled: Amount of CPU resources over the limit that was refused
Group CPU Sample Count
Group CPU Sample Period

System

Disk Usage: Amount of disk space usage for each mount point
Resource CPU Usage: Amount of CPU used during the interval by the Service Console and other applications
Resource CPU active: CPU active average over specified interval of the system resource group
Resource CPU allocation maximum (in MHz): CPU allocation limit (in MHz) of the system resource group
Resource CPU allocation minimum (in MHz): CPU allocation reservation (in MHz) of the system resource group
Resource CPU allocation shares: CPU allocation shares of the system resource group
Resource CPU maximum limited: CPU maximum limited over specified interval of the system resource group
Resource CPU running: CPU running average over specified interval of the system resource group
Resource memory allocation maximum: Memory allocation limit (in KB) of the system resource group
Resource memory allocation minimum: Memory allocation reservation (in KB) of the system resource group
Resource memory allocation shares: Memory allocation shares of the system resource group
Resource memory mapped: Memory mapped by the system resource group
Resource memory overhead: Overhead memory consumed by the system resource group
Resource memory share saved: Memory saved due to sharing by the system resource group
Resource memory shared: Memory shared by the system resource group
Resource memory swapped: Memory swapped out by the system resource group
Resource memory touched: Memory touched by the system resource group
Resource memory zero: Zero filled memory used by the system resource group
Heartbeat: Number of heartbeats issued per virtual machine during the interval
Uptime: Total time elapsed, in seconds, since last system startup

Cluster Services

CPU Fairness: Fairness of distributed CPU resource allocation
Memory Fairness: Aggregate available memory resources of all the hosts within a cluster