Hard Drive Monitoring

[scotty_p]

We are running vmware ESX 4.0 on DL380 G5s.I would like to monitor the failure of a hard drive with vCenter. On the hardware status tab, there is no storage sensor (see attachment). I do have the hpmgmt-8.3.0-vmware4x agent installed. I have read documentation that says there should be storage sensors for the hard drive. Am I missing something?

Thanks, Scott

[dburgess]

If it is ESXi you may need to get the HP version with the CIM provider for storage built in. Do you see the sensor data in Insight Manager?

dB

[scotty_p]

When I go to the System Management Homepage, I see the drives being monitored. I've attached a screenshot. It's ESX 4.0, not ESXi. I'm just not sure why vCenter isn't picking it up. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Scott

[dburgess]

Not 100% sure I think there is a web services interface for the CIM provider that you may need to enable - let me look into it.

dB

[scotty_p]

Thanks a lot.

[dburgess]

This is what I was thinking of but looks like it was fixed some time ago.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100967...

If you point the vShere client at the ESX server directly do you see the health status then?

[scotty_p]

Thanks for looking.

I pointed the client to the server and I still don't see the drives. I only see processors, power, fan, temperature and software components. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Scott

[dburgess]

Well that rules out a couple of possibilities. May be worth looking at the hp software on the esx host, could be that one of the agents has not started, although the fact that you see the sensors from an external source would suggest that they are being collected and that it is something to do with the cos process that is not hooking up with hp agent; as I recall that is hostd.

Is the disk management plug-in inside vc enabled?

Sent from mobile... dB

[dburgess]

Also after loading the agent - did you restart the management agents. It doesn’t seem to mention it in the release notes but would be sensible pre-caution.

Cheers,

dB

[scotty_p]

I'm not sure if the disk management plug-in is installed. I attached a screenshot of our plug-ins. I don't see an option to add the disk managment plug-in. How can I do this?

I found this link on HP's site.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15...

I tried installing it, but it kept failing. Do you know if this would help? If so, how to install it?

Thanks a lot,

Scott

[markwolf]

I am having the exact same issue and its VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

That link to the storage mgmt plug-in says its for ESX 4i, not ESX 4, maybe that's why it failed.

[scotty_p]

I'm thinking the same thing.

I have a ticket open with HP and VMware and neither of them are being very helful. If you figure it out, please let me know.

Thanks,

Scott

[itvmmgrs]

Scott,

My Dell 6850 servers have no storage tab but my Dell 2900, 2950, and R805 servers do have the storage icon. I run the exact same ESX 4u1 with no 3rd party management agents on all my hosts. Strange how it does not show up on the 6850 servers. Obviously it is has something to do with the hardware.

-Brian

[scotty_p]

That is weird, Brian.

I wonder what it is that allows that sensor to be detected on some servers and not others.

I hope I can eventually get to the bottom of this.

Thanks,

Scott

[DSTAVERT]

You must use ESX agents not ESXi agents. Make sure the ILO firmware is up to date.

There are many differences in what the different baseboard and versions of hardware exposes to software and what the hardware manufacturers are willing to support. Older servers show very little hardware information. New hardware shows quite a lot.

[dburgess]

I beleive this is partly yo do with some interpretations of the CIM standard. That seems to be coming together now with profiles. So really it is imcomplete/varying implementations on the BMC cards that causes this inconsistency not that some sensors can be read and others not..

[scotty_p]

Is this fixable? Thanks.

[dburgess]

Well by firmware upgrades to the BMC, but the vendor has to be motivated to make the changes, if this is the underlying cause then technically it may not be a bug just they report a sensor through a different aspect of the 'standard'..

Should be converging over time though.

dB

[DSTAVERT]

I also have DL380 G5s. HP has no problem showing storage although my experience is using ESXi.

[dburgess]

Did you have any issues getting the HP CIM enabled code? I'm just curious seems to catch a lot of folks out. Good that it is working though

dB