6.0

Event data includes details about the event such as who generated it, when it occured, and what type of
event it is. There are three types of events:
n
Information
n
Warning
n
Error
In the vSphere Client, event data is displayed in Tasks and Events tab for the selected inventory object. See
“View Events,” on page 410.
Alarms
Alarms are notifications that are activated in response to an event, a set of conditions, or the state of an
inventory object. An alarm definition consists of the following elements:
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Name and description - Provides an identifying label and description.
n
Alarm type - Defines the type of object that will be monitored.
n
Triggers - Defines the event, condition, or state that will trigger the alarm and defines the notification
severity.
n
Tolerance thresholds (Reporting) - Provides additional restrictions on condition and state triggers
thresholds that must be exceeded before the alarm is triggered.
n
Actions - Defines operations that occur in response to triggered alarms. VMware provides sets of
predefined actions that are specific to inventory object types.
Alarms have the following severity levels:
n
Normal – green
n
Warning – yellow
n
Alert – red
Alarm definitions are associated with the object selected in the inventory. An alarm monitors the type of
inventory objects specified in its definition.
For example, you might want to monitor the CPU usage of all virtual machines in a specific host cluster.
You can select the cluster in the inventory, and add a virtual machine alarm to it. When enabled, that alarm
will monitor all virtual machines running in the cluster and will trigger when any one of them meets the
criteria defined in the alarm. If you want to monitor a specific virtual machine in the cluster, but not others,
you would select that virtual machine in the inventory and add an alarm to it. One easy way to apply the
same alarms to a group of objects is to place those objects in a folder and define the alarm on the folder.
NOTE You can enable, disable, and modify alarms only from the object in which the alarm is defined. For
example, if you defined an alarm in a cluster to monitor virtual machines, you can only enable, disable, or
modify that alarm through the cluster; you can not make changes to the alarm at the individual virtual
machine level.
Alarm Actions
Alarm actions are operations that occur in response to the trigger. For example, you can have an email
notification sent to one or more administrators when an alarm is triggered.
NOTE Default alarms are not preconfigured with actions. You must manually set what action occurs when
the triggering event, condition, or state occurs.
Chapter 28 Monitoring a Single Host with the vSphere Client
VMware, Inc. 409