More about VMWare Monitoring Solution

Summary: Learn how to optimize your VMWare log data that is ingested into OMS.

Hi, this is Keiko again. I thought I’d share some tips about the OMS VMware Monitoring Solution. As you know, we collect the ESXi host logs to provide log analytics and visualization.

You may want to collect more detailed logs, or you may want to decrease your log volumes that are ingested in OMS. In such cases, you can do so through ESXi host logging levels.

Here are the ESXi hosts log levels:

Log level setting Description
None Disables logging
Error Logging limited to error messages
Warning Error messages plus warning messages are logged
Info Default setting on ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server systems. Errors, warnings, plus informational messages about normal operations are logged. Acceptable for production environments.
Verbose Can facilitate troubleshooting and debugging. Not recommended for production environments.
Trivia Extended verbose logging. Provides complete detail, including content of all SOAP messages between client and server. Use for debugging and to facilitate client application development only. Not recommended for production environments.

 

For information about how to change the log levels, refer to this article from VMware on Increasing VMware vCenter Server and VMware ESX/ESXi logging levels (1004795) or the vSphere documentation on Modifying the Log Level to Obtain Detailed Information.

Note: For auditing-like capabilities on OMS for VM creation and deletion, <hostd> must be set to “Info”.

Although VMware ESXi host has the capabilities to control the log volumes, let me know if you think it makes sense for OMS agent to provide the controls. Please provide your feedback at OMS UserVoice page, or send us an email at OMSVMWare@microsoft.com.

For more detailed information about VMware Solution, please refer to our documentation at VMware (Preview) solution in Log Analytics.

To interact with the community, you may want to join the Microsoft OMS Facebook site. If you want to learn more about Windows PowerShell, visit the Hey, Scripting Guy Blog.

You can get a free Microsoft Operations Management Suite (#MSOMS) subscription so that you can test it out. You can also get a free subscription for Microsoft Azure.

Keiko Harada
Program Manager
Microsoft Operations Management Team