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4 Decide where to assign the super metric.
You place super metrics in a package and assign the package to a resource. For many super metrics, you
assign the super metric package to an application to have it monitor all of the resources of the specified
kind in that application. In other cases, you define the resources to track in the super metric, but the
resource that you assign the super metric to determines where alerts occur if the super metric shows
abnormal behavior. You typically assign super metrics to a tier or application.
Super Metric Specifications
A super metric formula can consist of one or more metric specifications. You can specify a particular resource
and metric, such as CPU use for Database Server 2, or you can specify a metric and use This Resource, which
indicates the resource to which the super metric is assigned.
For example, if you select the transaction time metric and instruct vCenter Operations Manager to use this
resource, when the super metric is in a package assigned to Web Server 1, it uses the transaction time for Web
Server 1. If you assign the package to Web Server 2, it uses the transaction time for Web Server 2.
Assign any package that contains the super metric only to resources for which the metric is collected. You can
combine specific resource metrics and This Resource metrics in the same formula.
Super Metric Functions
vCenter Operations Manager includes functions that you can use in super metric formulas. The functions are
either looping functions or single functions.
Looping Functions
Looping functions work on more than one value.
Table 4-3. Looping Functions
Function Description
avg Average of the collected values.
combine Combines all of the values of the metrics of the included
resources into a single metric timeline.
count Number of values collected.
max Maximum of the collected values.
min Minimum of the collected values.
sum Total of the collected values.
Looping Function Formats
All looping functions have four possible formats.
Chapter 4 Configuring Attribute Packages
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