Foglight® for VMware 5.8.1
Developed for Foglight Management Server 5.9.6/ Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.9.1/ Foglight Evolve 9.1
Release Notes
December 2019
Welcome to Foglight for VMware
Resolved issues and enhancements
Getting started with Foglight for VMware
Foglight for VMware is the first monitoring solution to truly understand the virtual infrastructure and its use—providing everything from high-level infrastructure summary views to detailed, highly-visual, diagnostic architectural representations.
These Release Notes cover the resolved issues, known issues, workarounds and other important information about the 5.8.1 release of Foglight for VMware. Review all sections before starting the installation.
This 5.8.1 release of Foglight for VMware accompanies the release of Foglight Evolve 9.1 and Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.9.1. This release includes the following improvements:
This 5.8.1 release of the Foglight for VMware accompanies the release of Foglight Evolve 9.1 and Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.9.1. This release includes fixes for the following issues:
|
Defect ID |
Description |
|
VM-6488 |
Fixed an issue when adding blacklist there is no vCenter displayed. |
|
VM-6490 |
Fixed the collecting VMware permisson failure. |
|
VM-6503 |
Fixed an issue that It took a long time to display alarms after clicking it and users need recommendations on performance tuning. |
|
VM-6505 |
Fixed an issue when collecting vCSA 6.7, VMware agent log contains many WARNINGS "Found an invalid VM ManagedObjectReference xxx when running the permission collection". |
|
VM-6517 |
Updated descriptions for Black List and License Control function. |
|
VM-6521 |
Fixed the performance collection failure due to vSAN metrics collection exception. |
The following is a list of issues known to exist at the time of this release.
|
Defect ID |
Known Issue |
|
VFOG-11752 |
The Virtual Machines Network Performance - Service report is missing units when exported as an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. |
|
VFOG-11219 |
Too many vCenter sessions are detected, due to the agents not disconnecting properly when done. This leaves many idle sessions on the vCenter. |
|
VFOG-10849 |
When forwarded, the vSphere Alarm Virtual machine CPU usage displays null values. |
|
VFOG-10796 |
vCenter alarms are not collected by default. To enable their collection, set the Alarms Collection Enabled property of the VMware Performance Agent to True. |
|
VFOG-10217 |
A number of Warning messages are found in the log, indicating a big time difference between the monitored vCenter and Management Server. |
|
VFOG-10171 |
Incorrect virtual CPU ratio values are found in custom reports. |
|
VFOG-9390 |
The table on the Top CPU Consuming Virtual Machines view cannot be sorted. |
|
VFOG-9067 |
VMware cartridge creates duplicate VMware Performance agents with the ID -1. |
|
VFOG-9042 |
The vCenter Certificate's public key length has to be 1024-bits or higher and could not use MD5. This is because vCenters are configured to use a 512-bit long certificate keys. The Foglight Agent Manager JRE is updated to version 1.7.0.40 (1.7u40) or higher, which restricts the certificate key length to 1024 bits or higher. Workaround:
|
|
VFOG-6302 |
The IP address of ESX host cannot be collected and presented in the dashboard. |
|
VFOG-8973 |
If there are multiple virtual machines with the same name running in different virtual centers, their performance data may be incorrect. |
|
VFOG-8515 |
Upgrading to Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.0 causes the Virtual Environment Overview tiles to show zero objects. Workaround: Update the VMware Performance agent on the VMware Environment Administration tab, as instructed. For upgrade instructions, see Upgrade and Compatibility. |
|
VFOG-3421 |
When the IP or host name of the monitoring host changes, this results in two Virtual Center instances, one that collects data, and
another that does not. |
|
VFOG-2198 |
After exporting the CPU Utilization graph to Excel, incorrect labels appear in the resulting file. |
|
N/A |
|
Defect ID |
Known Issue |
|
VFOG-9887 |
On the All Hosts dashboard, accessible by clicking Homes > Hosts in the browser interface, Disk Current and Network Current columns for any ESX hosts or virtual machines show "n/a" instead of the actual metric values. This behavior does not apply to physical hosts collecting OS metric data. This table shows disk and network utilization percentages for ESX hosts or virtual machines which are not collected by Foglight for VMware. Hovering over these columns shows the related disk and network throughputs, which appear in units other than percentages. Workaround: There is no workaround available for this issue. |
The following is an issue known to exist at the time of this release.
|
Defect ID |
Known Issue |
|
VFOG-11632 |
Performance metrics cannot be collected for VSAN 5.5 because of its limited API.
Workaround: Upgrade to VSAN version 6.0. |
|
VFOG-11599 |
A known issue in vCenter 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0 leads to wrong packet
loss values, causing the VMW Virtual Machine Packet Loss rule alarms
to be triggered. For more information, visit: Workaround: If you monitor version 5.1/5.5, install the latest patch. At the moment, there is no solution for version 6.0. |
|
VFOG-10311 |
If a monitored VM is using a vmxnet3 adapter, networking data cannot be
collected. This is a known issue in vCenter 6. For more information, visit: |
|
VFOG-10301 |
The VM Network Performance data was lost when moving a virtual machine between vCenters. |
|
VFOG-9632 |
The VMware Explorer displays logical disk information for RHEL 6 virtual machines, but not for RHEL 7 virtual machines. This is due to the limitation of the default open-vm-tools version 9.4.0, included with RHEL 7 and CentOS 7, which does not support the XFS file system. |
|
VFOG-8579 |
vSwitch topology views display incorrect utilization and packet loss values,
showing data for unused and standby NICs. |
|
VFOG-8486 |
The total command latency is collected for monitored datastores, but cannot
be collected for NFS (network file system) storage. |
|
VFOG-8455 |
The virtual machine guest OS boot time is only collected in vCenter 5 or higher. |
|
VFOG-8278 |
Cluster CPU utilization is currently calculated using Hypervisor CPU usage. vCenter calculates the same values using only the available memory for virtual machines. |
|
VFOG-5139 |
Collection of traffic type utilization metrics is only possible if vCenter network usage counters are available and configured properly. These metrics illustrate how different types of data traffic are represented in the overall network traffic managed by a virtual switch. In a default installation network usage counters (listed below) are set to 3. To enable the collection of traffic type utilization metrics, each of these counters must be set to 1: throughput.usage.vm
On ESXi version 4.1 network usage counters
are not available, so this feature is not supported. For more information, see the following article: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2083590. |
Foglight Evolve 9.1 and Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.9.1 include a new version of Foglight for VMware 5.8.1. This new version of Foglight for VMware provides new capabilities to Foglight Evolve and Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition.
Foglight for VMware supports VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter Server versions 5.x and 6.x.
Important: The VMware Performance Agent uses a Virtual Center account to log in to the monitored Virtual Center. The administrative role associated with that account must be granted the Performance > Modify intervals privilege. When collecting traffic-type network metrics from the monitored ESX hosts, this privilege enables the VMware Performance Agent to change the performance metric counter levels in order to collect this data.
vCenters in Linked Mode: Linked Mode is supported, however an agent monitoring one vCenter does not gather data from other linked vCenters. Each vCenter requires its own dedicated agent.
The following version of the Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch for VMware vSphere is supported:
Note: The extended support for VirtualCenter 2.5 ended on May 21, 2013. Foglight for VMware is no longer tested with or supported for VirtualCenter 2.5.
Foglight for VMware is not compatible with the VirtualCenter for VMware Server.
Important: If you install or upgrade to this version of Foglight for VMware on the Management Server (outside of the Foglight Evolve or Foglight for Storage Management product families), and you also have the Foglight for Storage Management cartridge installed on the server, you must ensure that the Foglight for Storage Management cartridge is at least version 3.1.4. Using an earlier version will prevent the Storage Management data collections and dashboards from working as expected.
The following Foglight product versions and platforms are compatible with this release.
|
Product Name |
Product Version |
Platform |
|
Foglight Management Server |
5.9.6 |
All platforms supported by this version of the Foglight Management Server |
|
Foglight Agent Manager |
5.9.6 |
All platforms supported by this version of the Foglight Agent Manager |
|
Foglight Evolve |
9.1 |
All platforms supported by this version of the Foglight Evolve |
|
Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition |
8.9.1 |
All platforms supported by this version of the Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition |
Note: Extra minutes will be needed if you upgrade to the latest version in the environment where is deployed with more than 4,000 virtual machines.
For more information, see the Foglight Upgrade Guide.
Before installing Foglight for VMware, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:
| Operating System |
Foglight for VMware can be installed on any supported Foglight Management Server configuration. |
| Platform, Memory and Hard Disk Space | The platform, memory, and hard disk space requirements for the monitored servers must match the Agent Manager requirements. For complete information, see the System Requirements and Platform Support Guide. |
Note: 32-bit Windows and Linux Agent Manager installers are not included in the Foglight Evolve installer. New installations should use 64-bit Agent Managers. If you are upgrading 32-bit agent hosts, you can obtain 32-bit Agent Manager Installers from Quest Support.
For a complete list of system requirements, refer to the Installing the Virtualization Management Capabilities guide.
On 64-bit hosts meeting the minimum system requirements, the embedded Agent Manager can be used to run VMware Performance Agents to monitor up to1000 virtual machines. If the total number of virtual machines to be monitored from a single agent host is greater than 4000, an Agent Manager should be installed on a separate host.
Important: Foglight Evolve Virtual Appliance comes pre-configured to support up to 4,000 virtual machines. If you are using this product, there is no need to follow the configuration procedure described in this section.
If additional cartridges and agents are added to the environment, product performance should be monitored and agents moved off of the embedded Agent Manager to reduce the load.
| Minimum CPU | Minimum Memory | Minimum Host Memory | Total Monitored VMs | |
| Windows 64-bit |
2* |
2 GB |
4 GB |
1000 |
| Linux 64-bit |
2* |
2 GB |
4 GB |
1000 |
* Additional CPUs may be required for larger environments.
The Agent Manager JVM usually requires additional memory to monitor more than 4000 virtual machines. The total number of virtual machines is the total from all vCenters that will be monitored from all VMware Performance agents running on the Agent Manager.
The following calculations are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Memory requirements can vary greatly from installation to installation with similar VM counts. If insufficient memory is configured, the failure mode is easily recognizable: all agents on the Agent Manager host will go into a broken state after the agent(s) were activated for a short period of time, usually within 24 hours. In addition, the Agent Manager log will contain a line similar to the following:
Caused by: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
If this is the case, add memory greater than what is shown in the calculations below, in increments of 512 MB until the agents stabilize.
JVM memory requirements for VMware Performance agents are calculated using the following formula:
512 MB + 0.5 MB/VM
According to the above formula, monitoring 4000 virtual machines requires 2512 MB of memory:
512 MB + 2000 MB = 2512 MB (round up to 3 GB)
he default setting for agents deployed on 64-bit systems is 2560 MB, which suffice this environment.
Similarly, monitoring 8192 virtual machines requires 4608 MB of memory:
512 MB + 4096 MB = 4608 MB
Foglight Evolve Virtual Appliance comes pre-configured to support up to 4,000 virtual machines. This requires the default Agent Manager settings to be changed.
When monitoring larger vCenters, the Agent Manager machine hosting the VMware Performance agents should be dedicated to this task. No other Foglight agent types should run on the host and the host should not run any other applications.
Regardless of the values set for JVM memory above, Agent Manager never allocates more than 80% of system memory. So the machine hosting the Agent Manager and VMware Performance Agents must have sufficient memory. Beyond the memory requirements of the Agent Manager, a minimum of 2 GB should be free for the operating system. In the example above for 8000 VMs and an Agent Manager memory requirement of 4608 MB, the host should have a minimum of 6656 MB - the greater of:
1.25 x 4608 MB = 5760 MB
Or:
2048 + 4608 MB = 6656 MB
If the Foglight Agent Manager is configured on a virtual machine, it is recommended that the VM use a memory reservation to ensure maximum performance.
CPU usage on the Agent Manager host is relatively low most of the time.
However, usage peaks dramatically during the performance metric collection. This
is normal and expected. CPU utilization consistently over 50% is an indication
that additional processing power is required. As with memory, usage can vary
between different installations with similar numbers of virtual machines. The
following guidelines should be followed:
| Up to 1000 VMs |
2 CPUs |
| 1000 – 4000 VMs |
4 CPUs |
| 4000+ VMs |
add 1 CPU per 1000 VMs – round up when necessary |
When the Agent Manager and VMware Performance agents are running on a virtual machine, the VM should be configured with CPU reservation whenever possible to ensure best performance. Lack of processing power on the Agent Manager manifests in missed collections and gaps in the data usually noticeable in various graphs throughout the Foglight for VMware dashboards.
| # of virtual machines | Memory* Foglight JVM settings |
| 1000 |
Xms|Xmx=4G |
| 2500 | Xms|Xmx=9G |
| 5000 | Xms|Xmx=17G |
| 10000 | Xms|Xmx=32G |
| 20000 | Xms|Xmx=62G |
* Edit the Foglight Management Server JVM settings in the server.config file located under Quest\Foglight\config\. When running Foglight on a virtual machine, full memory needs be reserved at the hypervisor level.
Foglight includes a licensing capability that restricts access to those features that are defined in the license. Any Management Server installation requires a license that grants access to server-specific parts of the browser interface and the features associated with them. Foglight cartridges are also license-protected. While some cartridges are covered by the base Foglight license (such as Foglight Agent Manager cartridges and the Foglight for Infrastructure), others may require an additional license.
Foglight for VMware is covered by the base Foglight Evolve license and Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition license. A separate additional license is required for installation in the base Foglight product.
To activate a trial or a purchased commercial license:
Foglight for VMware release package contains the following:
Foglight Evolve 9.1 and Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.9.1 include a new version of Foglight for VMware 5.8.1. This new version of Foglight for VMware is installed with Foglight Evolve 9.1 or Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 8.9.1.
Important: To enable the VMware Performance Agent to monitor your virtual environment, you must grant the agent privileges for accessing the Virtual Center and collecting data from it, as described in "Granting the VMware Performance Agent Privileges to Collect Data from a Virtual Center" in the Foglight for VMware Installation Guide. However, when you create an administrative role in the Virtual Center for that purpose, in addition to the Datastore > Browse Datastores and Sessions > View and Terminate Sessions privileges, that role must also include the Performance > Modify intervals privilege. When collecting traffic-type network metrics from the monitored ESX hosts, this privilege enables the VMware Performance Agent to change the performance metric counter levels in order to collect this data. Also, any existing Virtual Center accounts that the VMware Performance Agent already uses to log in to the monitored Virtual Center must be granted the Performance > Modify intervals privilege.
After installing all of the cartridge files, the following cartridges appear on the list of installed cartridges:
For more information, see the Foglight for VMware Installation Guide.
Additional information is available from the following:
This section contains information about installing and operating this product in non-English configurations, such as those needed by customers outside of North America. This section does not replace the materials about supported platforms and configurations found elsewhere in the product documentation.
This release is Unicode-enabled and supports any character set. In this release, all product components should be configured to use the same or compatible character encodings and should be installed to use the same locale and regional options. This release is targeted to support operations in the following regions: North America, Western Europe and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Far-East Asia, Japan.
This release has the following known capabilities or limitations: This release is localized for English only but supports the Unicode character set.
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