6.3

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If you are a Network Operations engineer, you must understand how policies aect the data that
vRealize Operations Manager reports on objects, and which policies assigned to objects report alerts
and issues.
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If you are the person whose role is to recommend an initial setup for policies, you typically edit and
congure the policies in vRealize Operations Manager.
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If your primary role is to assess problems that occur in your environment, but you do not have the
responsibility to change the policies, you must still understand how the policies applied to objects aect
the data that appears in vRealize Operations Manager. For example, you might need to know which
policies apply to objects that are associated with particular alerts.
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If you are a typical application user who receives reports from vRealize Operations Manager, you must
have a high-level understanding of the operational policies so that you can understand the reported
data values.
Default Policy in vRealize Operations Manager
The default policy is a set of rules that applies to the majority of your objects.
The Default policy appears on the Active Policies tab, and is marked with the leer D in the Priority
column. The Default policy can apply to any number of objects.
The Default policy always appears at the boom in the list of policies, even if that policy is not associated
with an object group. When an object group does not have a policy applied, vRealize Operations Manager
associates the Default policy with that group.
A policy can inherit the Default policy seings, and those seings can apply to various objects under several
conditions.
The policy that is set to Default always takes the lowest priority. If you aempt to set two policies as the
Default policy, the rst policy that you set to Default is initially set to the lowest priority. When you set the
second policy to Default, that policy then takes the lowest priority, and the earlier policy that you set to
Default is set to the second lowest priority.
You can use the Default policy as the base policy to create your own custom policy. You modify the default
policy seings to create a policy that meets your analysis and monitoring needs. When you start with the
Default policy, your new policy inherits all of the seings from the Default base policy. You can then
customize your new policy and override these seings.
The data adapters and solutions installed in vRealize Operations Manager provide a collective group of base
seings that apply to all objects. In the policy navigation tree on the Policy Library tab, these seings are
called Base Seings. The Default policy inherits all of the base seings by default.
Custom Policies
You can customize the default policy and base policies included with vRealize Operations Manager for your
own environment. You can then apply your custom policy to groups of objects, such as the objects in a
cluster, or virtual machines and hosts, or to a group that you create to include unique objects and specic
criteria.
You must be familiar with the policies so that you can understand the data that appears in the user interface,
because policies drive the results that appear in the vRealize Operations Manager dashboards, views, and
reports.
To determine how to customize operational policies and apply them to your environment, you must plan
ahead. For example:
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Must you track CPU allocation? If you overallocate CPU, what percentage must you apply to your
production and test objects?
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Will you overallocate memory or storage? If you use High Availability, what buers must you use?
Chapter 3 Customizing How vRealize Operations Manager Monitors Your Environment
VMware, Inc. 83