Configuring VM manager for subcapacity reporting

If you use BigFix Inventory for subcapacity reporting purposes, perform additional configuration tasks to balance the workload of your VM Manager Tool.

About this task

Make sure that you define enough VM Manager Tool connections. Every VM Manager Tool should handle the workload and complete its tasks within the time that is determined by the pooling interval.

Procedure

Set the value of _BESClient_ArchiveManager_MaxArchiveSize to at least 50 MB on the endpoint where the VM Manager Tool is installed. In this way, you eliminate the risk of reaching the maximum size of files that can be uploaded to the BigFix server during the configuration.
1. Log in to the BigFix console.
2. In the left navigation panel and, select Computers. Right-click the name of the appropriate computer, and click Edit Computer Settings.
3. Edit the value of the _BESClient_ArchiveManager_MaxArchiveSize parameter to increase the maximum archive size.
Note: Starting from application update 9.2.14, you can check on the Computer Support Data panel whether the value of _BESClient_ArchiveManager_MaxArchiveSize is exceeded. For more information, see: Troubleshooting problems with computers.
Set the value of pooling interval to 30 minutes or less. It is a mandatory setting if you use BigFix Inventory to count subcapacity.
- For the central VM Manager Tool, go to Management > Advanced Server Settings and set the value of vmm_pooling_time_intervalparameter.
- For distributed VM Manager Tool, go to the following directory and set the value of the vmm_pooling_time_interval parameter in the vmmmainconf.properties file.
  - BESClient/LMT/VMMAN/config/
  - BESClient\LMT\VMMAN\config
To check whether you defined enough VM Manager Tool connections, perform the following steps.
1. Stop the VM Manager Tool service.
  1. Go to the following directory
    - BESClient/LMT/VMMAN
    - BESClient\LMT\VMMAN
  2. Run the following command.
```
./vmman -stop
```
2. Define the VM manager connection. For more information, see: Adding VM managers for VMware, Hyper-V, KVM with RHEV-M, Xen Server and Nutanix.
3. Clear the following directory
  - BESClient/LMT/VMMAN/logs
  - BESClient\LMT\VMMAN\logs
4. Check whether all connections are correctly defined and gather the data. Go to the following directory and run the command: ./vmman -runonce.
5. To make sure that the results of the command ./vmman -runonce are correct, check whether you see the following message for every defined connection.
```
CODSV0001I: [ vmmconf_<number>.properties ] Data was successfully retrieved
from the VM manager at https://<URL>
```
6. Go to the following directory.
  - BESClient/LMT/VMMAN/logs
  - BESClient\LMT\VMMAN\logs
  Check the trace.log file to see how long it took to complete the ./vmman -runonce command.
7. Note the time between log messages, for example:
```
2018-07-25 11:35:38 : (main) com.ibm.license.mgmt.datacollector.Runner:
:initialiseLogger::Logger initialised successfully. 
… 
2018-07-25 11:37:49 : (main) com.ibm.license.mgmt.datacollector.Runner::runCollector
(Configuration)::Finished 'run once' command.
```
  - If the time between log messages stays under 20 minutes, it means that you defined enough VM Manager Tool connections and that every VM Manager Tool completes its tasks within the acceptable time. You can define more connections if needed.
  - If the time between log messages goes above 20 minutes, distribute connections to another VM Manager Tool so that every VM Manager Tool completes its tasks within that time.
    - To limit the amount of data collected by a single connection, set users with limited access to a subset of computers and split the load between multiple VM Manager Tool connections.
    Tip: Even though the pooling interval is 30 minutes, keep the time between log messages under 20 minutes. You need to leave some breathing room for VM migrations, higher network traffic or higher hypervisor workload periods.
8. Run the ./vmman -run command to start the VM Manager Tool service.
9. Check the size of the data set that was collected from this VM Manager Tool and whether it exceeds the _BESClient_ArchiveManager_MaxArchiveSize value.
After you complete the configuration of VM Manager Tool connections, results are stored in the following directory. To sent the results to the BigFix server, run the Schedule VM Manager Tool Scan Results Upload task.
- BESClient/LMT/VMMAN/upload
- BESClient\LMT\VMMAN\upload
You can run Force VM Manager Tool Scan Results Upload to upload the result files to the BigFix server faster.
When the task completes, the result file or files are stored in the following directory. Result files names follow the specific naming convention: 1323215_<number>_vmman.tar.gz.
- BESClient/LMT/VMMAN/
- BESClient\LMT\VMMAN\

Results

Your VM manager configuration is complete. If at any point your previously configured VM Manager Tool stops collecting data, go to the following directory.

BESClient/LMT/VMMAN/logs
BESClient\LMT\VMMAN\logs

Check if the log file contains the following message.

"[WARNING] Data collection from some defined vm managers did not finish within defined 
pooling interval 30. Please consider increasing the vmm_pooling_time_interval setting 
in vmmmainconf.properties file or divide your vm manager connections to more VM Manager Tools.

If that happens, you need to configure new VM Manager Tool and split the workload.

You can check whether _BESClient_ArchiveManager_MaxArchiveSize is exceeded by checking the Software Scan Status analysis. The Is archive size exceeded? column provides the information for computers with VM Manager Tool installed.