6.5.1

Data Collection Levels
Each collection interval has a default collection level that determines the amount of data gathered and which
counters are available for display in the charts. Collection levels are also referred to as statistics levels.
Table 1‑5. Statistics Levels
Level Metrics Best Practice
Level 1
n
Cluster Services (VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler) –
all metrics
n
CPU – cpuentitlement, totalmhz, usage (average), usagemhz
n
Disk – capacity, maxTotalLatency, provisioned, unshared,
usage (average), used
n
Memory – consumed, mementitlement, overhead,
swapinRate, swapoutRate, swapused, totalmb, usage
(average), vmmemctl (balloon)
n
Network – usage (average), IPv6
n
System – heartbeat, uptime
n
Virtual Machine Operations – numChangeDS,
numChangeHost, numChangeHostDS
Use for long-term performance
monitoring when device statistics are
not required.
Level 1 is the default Collection Level
for all Collection Intervals.
Level 2
n
Level 1 metrics
n
CPU – idle, reservedCapacity
n
Disk – All metrics, excluding numberRead and numberWrite.
n
Memory – All metrics, excluding memUsed and maximum
and minimum rollup values.
n
Virtual Machine Operations – All metrics
Use for long-term performance
monitoring when device statistics are
not required but you want to monitor
more than the basic statistics.
Level 3
n
Level 1 and Level 2 metrics
n
Metrics for all counters, excluding minimum and maximum
rollup values.
n
Device metrics
Use for short-term performance
monitoring after encountering
problems or when device statistics are
required.
Because of the large quantity of
troubleshooting data retrieved and
recorded, use level 3 for the shortest
time period (Day or Week collection
interval).
Level 4 All metrics supported by the vCenter Server, including minimum
and maximum rollup values.
Use for short-term performance
monitoring after encountering
problems or when device statistics are
required.
Because of the large quantity of
troubleshooting data retrieved and
recorded, use level 4 for the shortest
amount of time.
N When you increase the collection level, the storage and system requirements might change. You
might need to allocate more system resources to avoid a decrease in the performance.
Chapter 1 Monitoring Inventory Objects with Performance Charts
VMware, Inc. 11