Installation guide

Collection Levels
Each collection interval has a default collection level that determines how many data counters are used when
collecting statistics data.
The collection level establishes which metrics are retrieved and recorded in the vCenter Server database. You
can assign a collection level of 1- 4 to each collection interval, with level 4 having the largest number of counters.
By default, all collection intervals use collection level 1.
The collection level for an interval cannot be greater than the collection level set for the preceding collection
interval. For example, if the Month interval is set to collection level 3, the Year interval can be set to collection
level 1, 2, or 3, but not to collection level 4. This is a vCenter Server dependency.
Table 22-4 describes each collection level and provides recommendations on when to use them.
Table 22-4. Collection Levels
Level Metrics Best Practice
Level 1
n
Cluster Services (VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler) –
all metrics
n
CPU – cpuentitlement, totalmhz, usage (average), usagemhz
n
Disk – capacity, maxTotalLatency, provisioned, unshared,
usage (average), used
n
Memory – consumed, mementitlement, overhead,
swapinRate, swapoutRate, swapused, totalmb, usage
(average), vmmemctl (balloon)
n
Network – usage (average)
n
System – heartbeat, uptime
n
Virtual Machine Operations – numChangeDS,
numChangeHost, numChangeHostDS
Use for long-term performance
monitoring when device statistics are
not required.
Level 1 is the default Collection Level
for all Collection Intervals.
Level 2
n
Level 1 metrics
n
CPU – idle, reservedCapacity
n
Disk – All metrics, excluding numberRead and numberWrite.
n
Memory – All metrics, excluding memUsed and maximum
and minimum rollup values.
n
Virtual Machine Operations – All metrics
Use for long-term performance
monitoring when device statistics are
not required but you want to monitor
more than the basic statistics.
Level 3
n
Level 1 and Level 2 metrics
n
Metrics for all counters, excluding minimum and maximum
rollup values.
n
Device metrics
Use for short-term performance
monitoring after encountering
problems or when device statistics are
required.
Due to the large quantity of
troubleshooting data retrieved and
recorded, use level 3 for the shortest
time period possible— the Day or Week
collection interval.
Level 4 All metrics supported by the vCenter Server, including minimum
and maximum rollup values.
Use for short-term performance
monitoring after encountering
problems or when device statistics are
required.
Due to the large quantity of
troubleshooting data retrieved and
recorded, use level 4 for the shortest
amount of time possible.
Generally, you need to use only collection levels 1 and 2 for performance monitoring and analysis. Levels 3
and 4 provide granularity that is generally useful only for developers. Unless vCenter Server is set to a collection
level that contains a data counter, the data for that counter is not stored in the database nor is it rolled up into
a past-day statistic on the ESX/ESXi host. The counter will not appear in the performance charts.
vSphere Basic System Administration
272 VMware, Inc.