vROps 8 – Deploying an application remote collector

So in vROps there are two kinds of remote collectors. The remote collector that generally works on collecting metrics and information for the analytics cluster, and the Application Remote collector, which is focused for the applications you can monitor via the management pack extensions.

There are two important things during this deployment.

  1. You must download one extra OVA file from my.vmware.com or from the download arrow in the Application RC page.
  2. The deployment of ovf is normal, the adding of an Application RC happens inside vROps.

My-vmware-application-rc

Once you have downloaded the application Remote collector from my.vmware.com and deployed it in your vCenter, you need to go to:

Administration –> Configuration –> Application Remote Collector

Before you can add the Application RCs to your setup you must first click on “Activate” to Activate VMware vRealize Application Management Pack.

arc-01

This takes you to the solutions repository. There are two packs there “VMware vRealize Application Management pack and Operating Systems/Remote Service Monitoring. Click on “Activate”, to activate both (You only need the Application part for the RC, but the second one is useful for the agent part). then go back to the ARC page. It takes a moment for the two packs to be installed/activated.

arc-02

After you are back in the Application RC page, click on the plus (which is now, no longer greyed out). to add the first Application RC.

arc-03

Fill in the required details and proceed to next screen, select the vCenter and test the connction to see that all is ok, then go to next screen:

arc-04

Press save, notice it can take 5 minutes for this to complete. At the end you should have your Application RCs listed in the Window. You will only see the Application RCs here, they will not appear on the admin screen (https://fqdn/admin) of your analytics cluster.

arc-05

After deploying the remote controller, you should, like with all other vrops appliances set the root password. You can do this from the console of the appliance inside vCenter. Until you do this SSH is disabled. The default login is, as per the documentation user: root and password: “vmware” (Without the quotes).

That is it for adding the Application Remote Collectors. Next steps will be to use the Telegraf agent to connect to your servers so you can get metrics from the application/OS layers. You can find more about that here.