VMware Cloud Community
bopp
Contributor
Contributor

No VM Heartbeat monitoring in Virtual Center 2

Have VMWare removed the heartbeat monitoring for Virtual Machines from ESX3 and Virtual Center2? You can no longer set alarms for if a Virtual Machine loses its heartbeat. This used to be a handy feature in case a server crashed.

Or is it just something that you have to turn on manually in the new version cause I can't find it.

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18 Replies
dpomeroy
Champion
Champion

I noticed that too. I'm not sure if its hidden somewhere else, or if they just removed it. I think in the specific case you mentioned VMware would say "Use our new HA feature to recover from ESX server crashes automatically".

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bopp
Contributor
Contributor

Yes you could, but the new HA feature doesn't allow for a VM crashing. What happens if a VM blue screens? With the old heartbeat monitoring it would alert you. Now it doesn't look like there is any way to be alerted via VC2.

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dpomeroy
Champion
Champion

You are right. Unless someone else knows where it might have disappeared to you may want to post in the feature request forum to put it back, or even open an SR asking where it is.

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PepeVM
Expert
Expert

HA should monitor heartbeat as well as other stats coming from VMs. In case of blue screen it is possible to restart the machine same way as in case of HW damage.

HA function is not to be compared with VMotion feature as this one comes up running only in case of both hw are still alive and have sufficient resources (lan, mem, cpu) to move vm from a box to another one.

Although this, heartbeat monitoring could be useful so I hope I'll find myself where they decided to hide or wait for official feature request...

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dpomeroy
Champion
Champion

HA doesn't work at the individual VM level, it works at the ESX level, so if one VM dies, HA isn't going to do anything. Also not everyone is going to purchase ESX Enterprise edition, so it would be nice to have the heartbeat monitor.

Maybe most of their customers said they were using third party monitoring tools (MOM, OpenView, NetIQ, etc) to provide this functionality, or maybe they just made a mistake and left it out accidentally Smiley Happy

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mlydy
Contributor
Contributor

Has anybody heard if they are going to restore virtual machine heartbeat monitoring? This was one of the most useful alerts in our environment.

Matt

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Quotient
Expert
Expert

There is defintely inconsistency between VC's online help and the Basic System Administration Guide, Chapter 17 (esp. bottom pg. 296)...

😐

Smiley Sad

VMware - Any comment...!?!?!?

Did we go GA too early with this one...!?!?!?

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jbsengineer
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Anyone ever get clarification on this?

I didn't realize until today that the Heartbeat alarms were missing. Big let down. We used them all the time in our environment.

Heartbeat monitoring is still internal to ESX because if you try to Vmotion a VM that was just booted it will tell you their are no heartbeats being recieved. Are people missing this or is it just us?

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wcrahen
Expert
Expert

I'm also curious if there has been resolution (or rather workaround) on this, I agree that it was always handy to monitor and alert on the VM heartbeat.

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tejasraje
Contributor
Contributor

Can someone at vmware plz respond. heartbeats to the VM was a very handy feature, but looks like it is no more there. Or it does not work as advertised.

vmware-cmd getheartbeat keeps returning good heartbeat status even if the VM is blue screened ? Is it a bug or something ?

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Ron_Cx
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

Any work around find for this ?

Sincerly,

Ronald

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jtt88
Contributor
Contributor

I'm curious why they took this away too? You can show Heartbeat on the Performance tab by showing the System - Heartbeat, but there is no alarm that can be set for this. It's definitely tracked still, just they took away the alarm.

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Ron_Cx
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

Does someone has a clue why it's missing now and how to emulate this?

Regards,

Ronald

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Ron_Cx
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

Still nothing about that in ESX 3.0.2 VCMS 2.0.2.

Why these usefull feature has been removed ?

Regards,

Ronald

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FredPeterson
Expert
Expert

Er, I can configure a heartbeat for my VM's using VC 2.0.2.

It doesn't seem to be working correctly though as once the heartbeat turns on, it never goes away until I restart the VMWare Tools Service. So a reboot triggers it, but then it never removes it.

It does the same thing on a VMotion - triggers the alarm but then does not remove the alarm.

This is on a new VM created so the only VM tools ever installed are those on my ESX v3.0.1 patch level.

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nkrick
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am having the same problem. I setup a heartbeat monitor for VM's but after a VM reboot, the alarm triggers and never turns back off. Looks like a bug...

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Ron_Cx
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, it's back.

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jeremypage
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It's there for me too...but I also am having the problem where when it goes into the Error state it stays there until vmware tools are restarted.

This is true for many Errors, not just heartbeat, and it does not always happened. Looks like the cake was taken out of the oven a bit early.

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