Overview

VMware vSphere is VMware’s cloud computing virtualization platform. Telegraf is a plug-in driven server agent for collecting and sending metrics and events from databases, systems and IoT sensors.

To send your Prometheus-format Vmware Vsphere metrics to Logz.io, you need to add the inputs.vsphere and outputs.http plug-ins to your Telegraf configuration file.

Configuring Telegraf to send your metrics data to Logz.io

Set up Telegraf v1.17 or higher

Set up Telegraf on a dedicated server as described below.

For Windows:
wget https://dl.influxdata.com/telegraf/releases/telegraf-1.19.2_windows_amd64.zip

After downloading the archive, extract its content into C:\Program Files\Logzio\telegraf\.

The configuration file is located at C:\Program Files\Logzio\telegraf\.

For MacOS:
brew install telegraf

The configuration file is located at /usr/local/etc/telegraf.conf.

For Linux:

Ubuntu & Debian

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install telegraf

The configuration file is located at /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf.

RedHat and CentOS

sudo yum install telegraf

The configuration file is located at /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf.

SLES & openSUSE

# add go repository
zypper ar -f obs://devel:languages:go/ go
# install latest telegraf
zypper in telegraf

The configuration file is located at /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf.

FreeBSD/PC-BSD

sudo pkg install telegraf

The configuration file is located at /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf.

Add the inputs.vsphere plug-in

First you need to configure the input plug-in to enable Telegraf to scrape the Vmware Vsphere data from your hosts. To do this, add the following code to the configuration file:

# Read metrics from one or many vCenters
[[inputs.vsphere]]
    ## List of vCenter URLs to be monitored. These three lines must be uncommented and edited for the plugin to work.
  vcenters = [ "https://vcenter.local/sdk" ]
  username = "user@corp.local"
  password = "secret"

The above integration scrapes all Vmware Vsphere metrics available on your machines. If you wish to include or exclude specific metrics, add them to the inputs file as described here.

Here is an example of the configuration file that will enable Telegraf to scrape metrics defined by vm_metric_include and host_metric_include arrays.

# Read metrics from one or many vCenters
[[inputs.vsphere]]
    ## List of vCenter URLs to be monitored. These three lines must be uncommented and edited for the plugin to work.
  vcenters = [ "https://vcenter.local/sdk" ]
  username = "user@corp.local"
  password = "secret"

  ## VMs
  ## Typical VM metrics (if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected)
  # vm_include = [ "/*/vm/**"] # Inventory path to VMs to collect (by default all are collected)
  # vm_exclude = [] # Inventory paths to exclude
  vm_metric_include = [
    "cpu.demand.average",
    "cpu.idle.summation",
    "cpu.latency.average",
    "cpu.readiness.average",
    "cpu.ready.summation",
    "cpu.run.summation",
    "cpu.usagemhz.average",
    "cpu.used.summation",
    "cpu.wait.summation",
    "mem.active.average",
    "mem.granted.average",
    "mem.latency.average",
 ]

  ## Hosts
  ## Typical host metrics (if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected)
  # host_include = [ "/*/host/**"] # Inventory path to hosts to collect (by default all are collected)
  # host_exclude [] # Inventory paths to exclude
  host_metric_include = [
    "cpu.swapwait.summation",
    "cpu.usage.average",
    "cpu.usagemhz.average",
    "cpu.used.summation",
    "cpu.utilization.average",
    "cpu.wait.summation",
    "disk.deviceReadLatency.average",
    "disk.deviceWriteLatency.average",
    "disk.kernelReadLatency.average",
    "disk.kernelWriteLatency.average",
    "disk.numberReadAveraged.average",
    "disk.numberWriteAveraged.average",
  ]

  ## Datacenters
  # datacenter_include = [ "/*/host/**"] # Inventory path to clusters to collect (by default all are collected)
  # datacenter_exclude = [] # Inventory paths to exclude
  # datacenter_metric_include = [] ## if omitted or empty, all metrics are collected
  datacenter_metric_exclude = [ "*" ] ## Datacenters are not collected by default.
  # datacenter_instances = false ## false by default
Add the outputs.http plug-in

After you create the configuration file, configure the output plug-in to enable Telegraf to send your data to Logz.io in Prometheus-format. To do this, add the following code to the configuration file:

[[outputs.http]]
  url = "https://<<LISTENER-HOST>>:8053"
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"
  [outputs.http.headers]
     Content-Type = "application/x-protobuf"
     Content-Encoding = "snappy"
     X-Prometheus-Remote-Write-Version = "0.1.0"
     Authorization = "Bearer <<PROMETHEUS-METRICS-SHIPPING-TOKEN>>"

Replace the placeholders to match your specifics. (They are indicated by the double angle brackets << >>):

  • Replace <<PROMETHEUS-METRICS-SHIPPING-TOKEN>> with a token for the Metrics account you want to ship to.
    Here’s how to look up your Metrics token.
  • Replace <<LISTENER-HOST>> with the Logz.io Listener URL for your region, configured to use port 8052 for http traffic, or port 8053 for https traffic. For example, listener.logz.io if your account is hosted on AWS US East, or listener-nl.logz.io if hosted on Azure West Europe.
Start Telegraf
On Windows:
telegraf.exe --service start
On MacOS:
telegraf --config telegraf.conf
On Linux:

Linux (sysvinit and upstart installations)

sudo service telegraf start

Linux (systemd installations)

systemctl start telegraf
Check Logz.io for your metrics

Log in to your Logz.io account and navigate to the current instructions page inside the Logz.io app. Install the pre-built dashboards to enhance the observability of your metrics.

To view the metrics on the main dashboard, log in to your Logz.io Metrics account, and open the Logz.io Metrics tab.