Product Description

VMware VirtualCenter manages IT environments. VirtualCenter lets you rapidly provision virtual machines and monitor performance of physical servers and virtual machines. VirtualCenter intelligently optimizes resources, ensures high availability to all applications in virtual machines and makes your IT environment more responsive with virtualization-based distributed services such as VMware DRS, VMware High Availability (HA) and VMware VMotion.
In summary, VMware VirtualCenter is a high-level management tool which allows management of VMware GSX and ESX on a server-by-server basis. It is deployed in enterprise environments where there are lots of GSX/ESX servers to enable their control, move virtual machines etc.

Known Versions

• 1.0
• 1.0.1
• 1.1
• 1.2
• 1.3
• 1.3.1
• 1.4
• 1.4.1
• 2.0.0
• 2.0.1
• 2.0.2

Software Pattern Summary

Platforms Supported by the Pattern

The patterns have been created in a manner that allows them to support Windows and Unix platforms from the same module.

Identification

Software Instance Triggers

Simple Identification Mappings

The following processes are identified by the pattern, the identification is performed at two levels - processes listed below are identified through the use of Simple Identifiers and in addition, they are modeled within a full Software Instance for VMWare Virtual Center (See Application Model Produced by Software Pattern for more details about the approach taken to model this product).

The processes there are Simple Identifiers for are:

Versioning

We currently collect version information for the product using one of two possible methods.

Active Versioning

This is the preferred Versioning method for the Virtual Center Agent pattern, and works solely on that pattern, and exclusively when it triggered on the (?i)\bvpxa$ Regular Expression. The pattern then ensures that Foundation scanned the process with its Full Path by matching it against a Regular Expression, then executes the strings command on that binary, and parses its output through two more Active Commands. Finally the pattern parses the result of the Active Command through another Regular Expression and extracts Version. The Regular Expressions and Active Commands employed in this process are illustrated below:

Regular Expression used to check Full Path: (^/.*?/vpxa)

Active Commands used to parse output: | grep "VMware VirtualCenter Agent Daemon" | head -n 1

Regular Expression used to extract Version: Daemon\s+(?P<version>\d+(?:\.\d+)*)\s+build-(?P<build>\d+)

Build Number

After extracting Version the pattern also extracts Build Number, and does it by using the very same Regular Expression used to extract Version. The pattern then sets Full Version for the product the include Build Number. Upon creating the Software Instance, the pattern adds Build Number to the SI.

Package Versioning

This method is used by both patterns forming the module, although the Virtual Center Agent pattern resorts to it solely when Active Versioning didn't work. The patterns perform a search through all the packages installed on the host, then match them against a set of regular expressions, which vary depending on the pattern. The table bellow illustrates the details:

Application Model Produced by Software Pattern

Product Architecture

Overview

VMware VirtualCenter runs as a server on Windows platforms. It connects to the ESX Servers and carries out operations on them through an Agent, which it installs on each server when this is added to a VirtualCenter. The UI to the Server can either be a Windows Client, or a Web based interface. There is a License Server that manages the various licenses for the hosts across the network.

VirtualCenter Management Server

VirtualCenter server is a service that acts as a central administrator for VMware servers connected on a network to direct actions upon the virtual machines and the virtual machine hosts. VirtualCenter server provides the central working core of VirtualCenter.
VirtualCenter server is deployed as a Windows service and runs full-time. It must have network access to all the hosts it manages and be available for network access from any machine where the VirtualCenter client is run.
VMware VirtualCenter Server works in tandem with a database server. It currently supports MSDE, Microsoft SQL Server an Oracle.
This runs as the VMware VirtualCenter Server under Windows.

VirtualCenter Agent

VirtualCenter Agent is installed on each managed host. It collects, communicates, and executes the actions received from the VirtualCenter Server. It is installed automatically the first time any given host is added to the VirtualCenter inventory.
NOTE: The role and name of the VirtualCenter Agent process has evolved with the versions of VMWare VirtualCentre and ESX Server. In versions of VirtualCenter below 1.3 combined with ESX Server 2.5.1 and below, the VC Agent process is 'vmware-ccagent'. From VC version 1.3 (until the end of 1.x product line) and ESX Server 2.5.2, 'vmware-ccagent' functionality is incorporated into 'vmware-serverd' (which we identify using 'Misc/Virtual/VMwareServerD' SE Matcher definition).
VC 2.x introduces 'VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3' architecture and at this point (and from ESX Server 2.5.4 onwards) the VC Agent process used in 'vpxa'.
For that reason, the Knowledge Development team has decided to create 2 distinct SE Matcher definitions, one of which is for 'vmware-ccagent' process, while the other is for 'vpxa' process.

VirtualCenter Client

VirtualCenter Client is a user interface that runs locally on a Windows machine. The VirtualCenter Client runs on a machine with network access to the VirtualCenter Server. This can be on the same machine as the VirtualCenter Server or on another machine with network access. The VirtualCenter Client requires a computer monitor for access to the graphical user interface.
The product installs typically into C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client x.x\ on Windows.

Software Pattern Model

The patterns trigger on a variety of processes as described in Section Software Instance Triggers.

SI Depth

Both patterns create an Instance-Based (Deep) Software Instance, and identify it with a key based on product type and host key.

Relationship Creation

The patterns forming this module perform no Relationship associations of other processes. However, other components of VMWare VirtualCenter are identified as Simple Identities, as described in Section Simple Identification Mappings.

Managing VMware VirtualCenter Server

The vpxa_cfg_paths option in the configuration section contains a user-definable list of possible locations for the vpxa.cfg file from where the IP address of the Managing VMware VirtualCenter Server can be extracted. If it is successful in retrieving the IP Address of the Managing VMware VirtualCenter Server, the VMware VirtualCenter Agent pattern performs a search for all the SIs which have a VMware VirtualCenter Server type and traverses to the Endpoint of each SI to obtain their IP Address. If that IP Address matches that of the Managing VMware VirtualCenter Server, the pattern relates the two SIs as Client and Server.

Subject Matter Expertise

We will most likely investigate at some time in the future on how to identify the ESX Servers that a VirtualCenter Server handles, maybe through a configuration file or using the VMware Infrastrucure SDK. We would welcome any input on these subjects.

Testing

Information Sources

Open Issues

Created by: [Edoardo] 11:35, 28 November 2007 (PDT)

Reviewed by:

Updated by: Rebecca Shalfield 10:30, 28 January 2009 (GMT)