Search icon CANCEL
Subscription
0
Cart icon
Your Cart (0 item)
Close icon
You have no products in your basket yet
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Conferences
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
VMware vSphere Troubleshooting
VMware vSphere Troubleshooting

VMware vSphere Troubleshooting: Gain expertise in troubleshooting most common issues to implement vSphere environments with ease

eBook
$9.99 $35.99
Paperback
$54.99
Subscription
Free Trial
Renews at $19.99p/m

What do you get with Print?

Product feature icon Instant access to your digital eBook copy whilst your Print order is Shipped
Product feature icon Paperback book shipped to your preferred address
Product feature icon Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Product feature icon Access this title in our online reader with advanced features
Product feature icon DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
OR
Modal Close icon
Payment Processing...
tick Completed

Shipping Address

Billing Address

Shipping Methods
Table of content icon View table of contents Preview book icon Preview Book

VMware vSphere Troubleshooting

Chapter 2. Monitoring and Troubleshooting Host and VM Performance

In the previous chapter, you learned some basic troubleshooting skills and performed some vSphere troubleshooting. This chapter extends those skills deeper by using different monitoring tools to observe vSphere performance and identifies any potential problems that can cause bottlenecks in your infrastructure.

The topics covered in this chapter are as follows:

  • Tools for performance monitoring
  • Analyzing the esxtop results
  • Understanding key performance metrics (CPU, memory, network, storage)
  • Using vMA and remote esxtop
  • Analyzing vCenter performance charts
  • Creating charts
  • Configuring metrics
  • Configuring logging level for performance
  • USB attached virtual machines
  • Fault-tolerant virtual machines

The previous chapter thoroughly covered how to collect diagnostic information and different logs from vSphere hosts. Sometimes, the diagnostic information you have collected is not enough to identify the root cause of the problems vSphere...

Tools for performance monitoring

As already mentioned, VMware provides many power tools to monitor the performance of your vSphere infrastructure. These power tools help you to diagnose different problems of your vSphere hosts and vCenter Server in order to resolve them. Let's take a look at some of the tools.

Using esxtop/resxtop

The main tool for performance monitoring is esxtop, which collects data based on different metrics, for example, host memory usage, network usage, disk usage/IOPs and CPU usage.

Esxtop is just like using top in Linux. It has the same look and feel and provides the same kind of information provided by top tools in Linux. Esxtop is a famous tool almost every seasoned system administrator knows about. It can be used in real-time performance monitoring of vSphere hosts, and metrics can be monitored for system interruptions, CPU, network, disk device, disk adapter, and memory, each on a dedicated screen. The real-time monitoring can help you to identify different...

Analyzing esxtop results

The data collected by esxtop is processed as rates. When you run the esxtop command without any parameters, it presents the server-wide and individual statistics of a VM, the resource pool, the CPU utilization, and a world. A world is a technical term, like a running process in VMware terms, that represents a single VMkernel schedulable entity or a process or processes running on VMkernel. As we have a total of 369 worlds (see Figure 2.1), it is called group of worlds. These worlds can belong to a group of idle worlds, group of system worlds, group of helper worlds, or another group of worlds.

Understanding CPU statistics

I will explain the statistics found in Figure 2.1. The first line you can find in esxtop or vtop starts with the current system time. The uptime indicates how long the host is up. As you can see in the preceding figures, our host is up since the last 431 days. The next is the number of worlds, which in our case is 369.

The next option indicates the...

Memory statistics

VMware vSphere hosts are designed to utilize memory efficiently like other resources. The resource management policies are implemented in the vSphere host to allocate memory to the virtual machines it is hosting. This allocation is based on the allocated memory setting of a virtual machine and the current system load. The vSphere host reveals different memory statistics that can be viewed using esxtop. Before we start looking into memory statistics, let's look at a brief introduction of how a vSphere host manages its memory.

Memory statistics

Figure 2.6

Memory management in a vSphere host

Before we take a look at vSphere host memory metrics, I will walk you through memory management in a vSphere host system briefly. The memory management concept in a vSphere host will help you to understand the metrics displayed by esxtop. A vSphere host reclaims memory to provision memory overcommitment.

Memory overcommitment

The vSphere host system reserves physical memory for guaranteed delivery of memory...

Network metrics

The third common type of metrics that can be obtained from esxtop is network metrics. These metrics can help you troubleshoot network usage for your vSphere host and the virtual machines:

  1. Connect to a vSphere host using SSH and log in as root or an administrative user.
  2. In the command prompt, type esxtop without any flags.
  3. Press n to view the network screen. This screen displays detailed information about network usage.
  4. You need to enable some additional information for the physical network properties of vSphere hosts in esxtop for the UP (uplink), FULLDUPLEX, SPEED, TEAM-PNIC fields. Press c to enable the aforementioned fields; you can press c again to remove any field.
  5. Press f to go into the Current Field Order screen.
  6. Press the Esc key to return to the esxtop network statistics screen.

Understanding network metrics

In esxtop, network statistics are displayed for each port of a virtual switch. These ports are then either linked as uplinks to a physical network adapter or they are...

Storage metrics

Before we start exploring disk performance metrics, I will walk you through three different screens for the disk metrics. The first storage metrics screen is called disk device view, where you can view LUN information; the second one is the disk VM screen where you can see the statistics per virtual machine basis; and the last one is the disk adapter screen where you can view the information of disk statistics per host bus adapter (HBA) basis.

Let's access esxtop to view the disk statistics in the LUN mode:

  1. Connect to a vSphere host using SSH and log in as root or an administrative user.
  2. In the command prompt, type esxtop without any flags.
  3. Press u to switch disk device screen. This screen displays detailed information about storage, including your LUN, available data stores, shares, and number of objects.
  4. Press f to go into Current Field Order screen.
  5. You need to enable some additional information for the Number of Objects and Shares fields. Press c and then press d to enable...

Tools for performance monitoring


As already mentioned, VMware provides many power tools to monitor the performance of your vSphere infrastructure. These power tools help you to diagnose different problems of your vSphere hosts and vCenter Server in order to resolve them. Let's take a look at some of the tools.

Using esxtop/resxtop

The main tool for performance monitoring is esxtop, which collects data based on different metrics, for example, host memory usage, network usage, disk usage/IOPs and CPU usage.

Esxtop is just like using top in Linux. It has the same look and feel and provides the same kind of information provided by top tools in Linux. Esxtop is a famous tool almost every seasoned system administrator knows about. It can be used in real-time performance monitoring of vSphere hosts, and metrics can be monitored for system interruptions, CPU, network, disk device, disk adapter, and memory, each on a dedicated screen. The real-time monitoring can help you to identify different problems...

Analyzing esxtop results


The data collected by esxtop is processed as rates. When you run the esxtop command without any parameters, it presents the server-wide and individual statistics of a VM, the resource pool, the CPU utilization, and a world. A world is a technical term, like a running process in VMware terms, that represents a single VMkernel schedulable entity or a process or processes running on VMkernel. As we have a total of 369 worlds (see Figure 2.1), it is called group of worlds. These worlds can belong to a group of idle worlds, group of system worlds, group of helper worlds, or another group of worlds.

Understanding CPU statistics

I will explain the statistics found in Figure 2.1. The first line you can find in esxtop or vtop starts with the current system time. The uptime indicates how long the host is up. As you can see in the preceding figures, our host is up since the last 431 days. The next is the number of worlds, which in our case is 369.

The next option indicates the...

Memory statistics


VMware vSphere hosts are designed to utilize memory efficiently like other resources. The resource management policies are implemented in the vSphere host to allocate memory to the virtual machines it is hosting. This allocation is based on the allocated memory setting of a virtual machine and the current system load. The vSphere host reveals different memory statistics that can be viewed using esxtop. Before we start looking into memory statistics, let's look at a brief introduction of how a vSphere host manages its memory.

Figure 2.6

Memory management in a vSphere host

Before we take a look at vSphere host memory metrics, I will walk you through memory management in a vSphere host system briefly. The memory management concept in a vSphere host will help you to understand the metrics displayed by esxtop. A vSphere host reclaims memory to provision memory overcommitment.

Memory overcommitment

The vSphere host system reserves physical memory for guaranteed delivery of memory...

Network metrics


The third common type of metrics that can be obtained from esxtop is network metrics. These metrics can help you troubleshoot network usage for your vSphere host and the virtual machines:

  1. Connect to a vSphere host using SSH and log in as root or an administrative user.

  2. In the command prompt, type esxtop without any flags.

  3. Press n to view the network screen. This screen displays detailed information about network usage.

  4. You need to enable some additional information for the physical network properties of vSphere hosts in esxtop for the UP (uplink), FULLDUPLEX, SPEED, TEAM-PNIC fields. Press c to enable the aforementioned fields; you can press c again to remove any field.

  5. Press f to go into the Current Field Order screen.

  6. Press the Esc key to return to the esxtop network statistics screen.

Understanding network metrics

In esxtop, network statistics are displayed for each port of a virtual switch. These ports are then either linked as uplinks to a physical network adapter or they are...

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Key benefits

  • Plan, analyze, and design effective solutions for your vSphere environment
  • Troubleshoot problems related to vSphere performance
  • Familiarize yourself with the advanced troubleshooting conceptsand become an xpert level administrator

Description

VMware vSphere is the leading server virtualization platform with consistent management for virtual data centers. It enhances troubleshooting skills to diagnose and resolve day to day problems in your VMware vSphere infrastructure environment. This book will provide you practical hands-on knowledge of using different performance monitoring and troubleshooting tools to manage and troubleshoot the vSphere infrastructure. It begins by introducing systematic approach for troubleshooting different problems and show casing the troubleshooting techniques. You will be able to use the troubleshooting tools to monitor performance, and troubleshoot issues related to Hosts and Virtual Machines. Moving on, you will troubleshoot High Availability, storage I/O control problems, virtual LANS, and iSCSI, NFS, VMFS issues. By the end of this book, you will be able to analyze and solve advanced issues related to vShpere environment such as vcenter certificates, database problems, and different failed state errors.

Who is this book for?

The books is intended for mid-level System Engineers and System Integrators who want to learn VMware power tools to troubleshoot and manage the vSphere infrastructure. Good knowledge level and understanding of virtualization is expected.

What you will learn

  • Configure vSphere management assistant and troubleshooting tools
  • Use troubleshooting tools to monitor performance and troubleshoot different issues
  • Learn how to troubleshoot High Availability and other commonly known problems with clusters such as insufficient resources, failing heartbeats
  • Use Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) to verify configuration
  • Diagnose storage issues including iSCSI, NFS and VMFS problems
  • Manage vSphere Network Virtual and Distributed Switches, Trunks, VLANS
  • Monitor and shape network traffic, configure routes and DNS
  • Quickly resolve common day-to-day problems by analysing logs of VMware vSphere hosts and VMware vCenter Server
  • Debug and resolve commonly known vSphere Cluster problems
Estimated delivery fee Deliver to Japan

Standard delivery 10 - 13 business days

$8.95

Premium delivery 3 - 6 business days

$34.95
(Includes tracking information)

Product Details

Country selected
Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Nov 02, 2015
Length: 270 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783551767
Vendor :
VMware
Tools :

What do you get with Print?

Product feature icon Instant access to your digital eBook copy whilst your Print order is Shipped
Product feature icon Paperback book shipped to your preferred address
Product feature icon Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Product feature icon Access this title in our online reader with advanced features
Product feature icon DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
OR
Modal Close icon
Payment Processing...
tick Completed

Shipping Address

Billing Address

Shipping Methods
Estimated delivery fee Deliver to Japan

Standard delivery 10 - 13 business days

$8.95

Premium delivery 3 - 6 business days

$34.95
(Includes tracking information)

Product Details

Publication date : Nov 02, 2015
Length: 270 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783551767
Vendor :
VMware
Tools :

Packt Subscriptions

See our plans and pricing
Modal Close icon
$19.99 billed monthly
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Simple pricing, no contract
$199.99 billed annually
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Choose a DRM-free eBook or Video every month to keep
Feature tick icon PLUS own as many other DRM-free eBooks or Videos as you like for just $5 each
Feature tick icon Exclusive print discounts
$279.99 billed in 18 months
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Choose a DRM-free eBook or Video every month to keep
Feature tick icon PLUS own as many other DRM-free eBooks or Videos as you like for just $5 each
Feature tick icon Exclusive print discounts

Frequently bought together


Stars icon
Total $ 186.97
VMware Performance and Capacity Management, Second Edition
$65.99
Learning VMware vSphere
$65.99
VMware vSphere Troubleshooting
$54.99
Total $ 186.97 Stars icon
Banner background image

Table of Contents

10 Chapters
1. The Methodology of Problem Solving Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Monitoring and Troubleshooting Host and VM Performance Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Troubleshooting Clusters Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Monitoring and Troubleshooting Networking Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Monitoring and Troubleshooting Storage Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Advanced Troubleshooting of vCenter Server and vSphere Hosts Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. Learning PowerGUI Basics Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
B. Installing VMware vRealize Operations Manager Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
C. Power CLI - A Basic Reference Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.3
(4 Ratings)
5 star 50%
4 star 25%
3 star 25%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Aravind Dec 31, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Must read book for VMware admins
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Jul 04, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Excellent book
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Dec 11, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Good and satisfied
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Placeholder Feb 16, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
Screenshots are not clear
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Get free access to Packt library with over 7500+ books and video courses for 7 days!
Start Free Trial

FAQs

What is the delivery time and cost of print book? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Shipping Details

USA:

'

Economy: Delivery to most addresses in the US within 10-15 business days

Premium: Trackable Delivery to most addresses in the US within 3-8 business days

UK:

Economy: Delivery to most addresses in the U.K. within 7-9 business days.
Shipments are not trackable

Premium: Trackable delivery to most addresses in the U.K. within 3-4 business days!
Add one extra business day for deliveries to Northern Ireland and Scottish Highlands and islands

EU:

Premium: Trackable delivery to most EU destinations within 4-9 business days.

Australia:

Economy: Can deliver to P. O. Boxes and private residences.
Trackable service with delivery to addresses in Australia only.
Delivery time ranges from 7-9 business days for VIC and 8-10 business days for Interstate metro
Delivery time is up to 15 business days for remote areas of WA, NT & QLD.

Premium: Delivery to addresses in Australia only
Trackable delivery to most P. O. Boxes and private residences in Australia within 4-5 days based on the distance to a destination following dispatch.

India:

Premium: Delivery to most Indian addresses within 5-6 business days

Rest of the World:

Premium: Countries in the American continent: Trackable delivery to most countries within 4-7 business days

Asia:

Premium: Delivery to most Asian addresses within 5-9 business days

Disclaimer:
All orders received before 5 PM U.K time would start printing from the next business day. So the estimated delivery times start from the next day as well. Orders received after 5 PM U.K time (in our internal systems) on a business day or anytime on the weekend will begin printing the second to next business day. For example, an order placed at 11 AM today will begin printing tomorrow, whereas an order placed at 9 PM tonight will begin printing the day after tomorrow.


Unfortunately, due to several restrictions, we are unable to ship to the following countries:

  1. Afghanistan
  2. American Samoa
  3. Belarus
  4. Brunei Darussalam
  5. Central African Republic
  6. The Democratic Republic of Congo
  7. Eritrea
  8. Guinea-bissau
  9. Iran
  10. Lebanon
  11. Libiya Arab Jamahriya
  12. Somalia
  13. Sudan
  14. Russian Federation
  15. Syrian Arab Republic
  16. Ukraine
  17. Venezuela
What is custom duty/charge? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customs duty are charges levied on goods when they cross international borders. It is a tax that is imposed on imported goods. These duties are charged by special authorities and bodies created by local governments and are meant to protect local industries, economies, and businesses.

Do I have to pay customs charges for the print book order? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

The orders shipped to the countries that are listed under EU27 will not bear custom charges. They are paid by Packt as part of the order.

List of EU27 countries: www.gov.uk/eu-eea:

A custom duty or localized taxes may be applicable on the shipment and would be charged by the recipient country outside of the EU27 which should be paid by the customer and these duties are not included in the shipping charges been charged on the order.

How do I know my custom duty charges? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

The amount of duty payable varies greatly depending on the imported goods, the country of origin and several other factors like the total invoice amount or dimensions like weight, and other such criteria applicable in your country.

For example:

  • If you live in Mexico, and the declared value of your ordered items is over $ 50, for you to receive a package, you will have to pay additional import tax of 19% which will be $ 9.50 to the courier service.
  • Whereas if you live in Turkey, and the declared value of your ordered items is over € 22, for you to receive a package, you will have to pay additional import tax of 18% which will be € 3.96 to the courier service.
How can I cancel my order? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Cancellation Policy for Published Printed Books:

You can cancel any order within 1 hour of placing the order. Simply contact customercare@packt.com with your order details or payment transaction id. If your order has already started the shipment process, we will do our best to stop it. However, if it is already on the way to you then when you receive it, you can contact us at customercare@packt.com using the returns and refund process.

Please understand that Packt Publishing cannot provide refunds or cancel any order except for the cases described in our Return Policy (i.e. Packt Publishing agrees to replace your printed book because it arrives damaged or material defect in book), Packt Publishing will not accept returns.

What is your returns and refunds policy? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Return Policy:

We want you to be happy with your purchase from Packtpub.com. We will not hassle you with returning print books to us. If the print book you receive from us is incorrect, damaged, doesn't work or is unacceptably late, please contact Customer Relations Team on customercare@packt.com with the order number and issue details as explained below:

  1. If you ordered (eBook, Video or Print Book) incorrectly or accidentally, please contact Customer Relations Team on customercare@packt.com within one hour of placing the order and we will replace/refund you the item cost.
  2. Sadly, if your eBook or Video file is faulty or a fault occurs during the eBook or Video being made available to you, i.e. during download then you should contact Customer Relations Team within 14 days of purchase on customercare@packt.com who will be able to resolve this issue for you.
  3. You will have a choice of replacement or refund of the problem items.(damaged, defective or incorrect)
  4. Once Customer Care Team confirms that you will be refunded, you should receive the refund within 10 to 12 working days.
  5. If you are only requesting a refund of one book from a multiple order, then we will refund you the appropriate single item.
  6. Where the items were shipped under a free shipping offer, there will be no shipping costs to refund.

On the off chance your printed book arrives damaged, with book material defect, contact our Customer Relation Team on customercare@packt.com within 14 days of receipt of the book with appropriate evidence of damage and we will work with you to secure a replacement copy, if necessary. Please note that each printed book you order from us is individually made by Packt's professional book-printing partner which is on a print-on-demand basis.

What tax is charged? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Currently, no tax is charged on the purchase of any print book (subject to change based on the laws and regulations). A localized VAT fee is charged only to our European and UK customers on eBooks, Video and subscriptions that they buy. GST is charged to Indian customers for eBooks and video purchases.

What payment methods can I use? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

You can pay with the following card types:

  1. Visa Debit
  2. Visa Credit
  3. MasterCard
  4. PayPal
What is the delivery time and cost of print books? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Shipping Details

USA:

'

Economy: Delivery to most addresses in the US within 10-15 business days

Premium: Trackable Delivery to most addresses in the US within 3-8 business days

UK:

Economy: Delivery to most addresses in the U.K. within 7-9 business days.
Shipments are not trackable

Premium: Trackable delivery to most addresses in the U.K. within 3-4 business days!
Add one extra business day for deliveries to Northern Ireland and Scottish Highlands and islands

EU:

Premium: Trackable delivery to most EU destinations within 4-9 business days.

Australia:

Economy: Can deliver to P. O. Boxes and private residences.
Trackable service with delivery to addresses in Australia only.
Delivery time ranges from 7-9 business days for VIC and 8-10 business days for Interstate metro
Delivery time is up to 15 business days for remote areas of WA, NT & QLD.

Premium: Delivery to addresses in Australia only
Trackable delivery to most P. O. Boxes and private residences in Australia within 4-5 days based on the distance to a destination following dispatch.

India:

Premium: Delivery to most Indian addresses within 5-6 business days

Rest of the World:

Premium: Countries in the American continent: Trackable delivery to most countries within 4-7 business days

Asia:

Premium: Delivery to most Asian addresses within 5-9 business days

Disclaimer:
All orders received before 5 PM U.K time would start printing from the next business day. So the estimated delivery times start from the next day as well. Orders received after 5 PM U.K time (in our internal systems) on a business day or anytime on the weekend will begin printing the second to next business day. For example, an order placed at 11 AM today will begin printing tomorrow, whereas an order placed at 9 PM tonight will begin printing the day after tomorrow.


Unfortunately, due to several restrictions, we are unable to ship to the following countries:

  1. Afghanistan
  2. American Samoa
  3. Belarus
  4. Brunei Darussalam
  5. Central African Republic
  6. The Democratic Republic of Congo
  7. Eritrea
  8. Guinea-bissau
  9. Iran
  10. Lebanon
  11. Libiya Arab Jamahriya
  12. Somalia
  13. Sudan
  14. Russian Federation
  15. Syrian Arab Republic
  16. Ukraine
  17. Venezuela