6.1

Table Of Contents

A metrics-gathering plug-in must determine availability for every object that it monitors. A single plug-in

gathers availability for multiple objects. If availability is not gathered for an object, the object is determined

to be unavailable.

A plug-in sets the value of availability to 100 if the object is up, and 0 if it is down. These values are

displayed in the user interface as available or unavailable.

Verifying the existence of an object's process is a common technique for determining its availability.

However, the method a plug-in uses to determine availability can vary depending on the object type and a

plug-in developer's judgment. There might be alternative techniques for determining availability of an

object. For example, a plug-in might determine the availability of a Web server based on whether its process

is up, its port is listening, it is responsive to a request, or by some combination of these conditions.

The following table describes each metric attribute, most of which, are intended for use by the server to

control display of the metric data.

Table 2‑2. metric Tag Attributes

Metric Attribute Description Required Yes/No Possible Values

name

The name that appears for

the metric in the

vRealize Operations

Manager user interface.

Yes

alias

The abbreviated name of

the metric, displayed in the

plug-in's output (name-

value pairs).

If not specified, alias

defaults to the value of

name, with any white

space and any non-

alphanumeric characters

removed.

No In the case of a JMX metric,

alias exactly matches the

name of the MBean attribute

that supplies the metric

value.