5.6

Configuring Resources 3
A resource is any entity in your environment for which vCenter Operations Manager can collect data, such as
a router, switch, firewall, database, application server, or TCP/IP-based application.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Defining Resources,” on page 19
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“Creating and Assigning Resource Tags,” on page 23
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“Grouping Resources by Physical Location,” on page 27
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“Configure Parent-Child Resource Relationships,” on page 29
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“Starting and Stopping Metric Collection,” on page 30
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“Using Maintenance Mode,” on page 31
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“Modifying Resources,” on page 33
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“Modifying Resource Tags,” on page 35
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“Customize a Resource Kind Icon,” on page 36
Defining Resources
Before vCenter Operations Manager can collect data for resources in your environment, a
vCenter Operations Manager administrator must define each resource to vCenter Operations Manager. You
define only resources that use embedded adapters. Resources that use external adapters are already defined
in vCenter Operations Manager.
vCenter Operations Manager requires specific information about each resource. You typically obtain this
information by performing resource discovery in vCenter Operations Manager for each adapter instance.
During the resource discovery process, vCenter Operations Manager lists all of the resources for the adapter
instance and you select which resources to track. For adapters that do not support resource discovery, you
must define resources individually.
A resource can be a single entity, such as a database, or a container that holds other resources. For example, if
you have multiple Web servers, you can define a single resource for each Web server and define a separate
container resource to hold all of the Web server resources. Applications and tiers are types of container
resources. See Chapter 5, “Configuring Applications,” on page 59.
If you do not want vCenter Operations Manager to collect all of the available attributes for a resource, you can
define a specific set of attributes to collect, called an attribute package, and assign it to the resource. See
“Creating Attribute Packages,” on page 42.
VMware, Inc.
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