PRTG Manual: VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP) Sensor

.NET 4.7.2 or later

This sensor requires .NET 4.7.2 or later to be installed on the probe system (on every cluster node, if on a cluster probe).

If the framework is missing, you cannot create this sensor.

For more information, see the Knowledge Base: Which .NET version does PRTG require?

Virtual Machine

You see a list of all VMs available on the host server on this device, including the ones that do not run. PRTG lists all VMs by name and the operating system that they run on. Select the VMs that you want to monitor. PRTG creates one sensor for each VM that you select.

Sensor Name

Enter a name to identify the sensor. By default, PRTG shows this name in the device tree, as well as in alarms, logs, notifications, reports, maps, libraries, and tickets.

If the name contains angle brackets (<>), PRTG replaces them with braces ({}) for security reasons. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: What security features does PRTG include?

Parent Tags

Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, parent group, and parent probe.

This setting is for your information only. You cannot change it.

Tags

Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited.

It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).

For performance reasons, it can take some minutes until you can filter for new tags that you added.

The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:

▪esxservervmsensor

Priority

Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines the position of the sensor in lists. The highest priority is at the top of a list. Choose from the lowest priority () to the highest priority ().

Managed Object Identifier (MOID)

Shows the managed object identifier (MOID) of the VM that this sensor monitors.

PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Powered-Off VM Handling

Define how the sensor reacts to VMs that are powered off:

▪Alarm when VM is powered off (default): Change to the Down status if the VM is powered off.

If the sensor is in the Down status, it does not record any data in any of its channels.

▪Ignore powered-off state: Do not change to the Down status if the VM is powered off. The sensor reports zero values instead.

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

▪Discard result: Do not store the sensor result.

▪Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file names are Result of Sensor [ID].txt and Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites these files with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:

▪Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.

▪Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

CPU Ready (Percent)

The CPU readiness (%)

CPU Usage

The CPU usage

This channel is the primary channel by default.

Datastore Total Read Latency

The datastore total read latency in milliseconds (msec)

Datastore Total Write Latency

The datastore total write latency in msec

Disk Read

The disk read speed

Disk Usage

The disk usage per second

Disk Write

The disk write speed in bytes per second

Downtime

In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status

Memory Active

The active memory in bytes

Memory Consumed

The consumed memory in bytes

Memory Consumed (Percent)

The memory consumed in percent

Network Received

The received bytes per second

Network Transmitted

The transmitted bytes per second

Network Usage

The total network usage in bytes per second

Power

The average host power usage in watts