INFORMANT-VS

All MIBs › INFORMANT-VS

Organization: Informant Systems, Inc.

Last Updated: 2007-05-10

Category: Domain: Server/Host Monitoring, Vendor: Informant Systems, Vendor: Microsoft

Description: Informant Systems MIB for monitoring Microsoft Virtual Server performance counters and virtual machine status via SNMP.

Start monitoring vendor-neutral, standards-based MIB, any SNMPv3-capable network device (SNMP engine identity/boot/clock status) with a free 30-day trial of IPNetwork Monitor. Import MIBs, browse SNMP OIDs, create custom SNMP monitors, configure alerts, and monitor any SNMP-enabled network device from a single console.

What Is INFORMANT-VS?

INFORMANT-VS is a third-party MIB from Informant Systems that exposes Microsoft Virtual Server host and guest performance data over SNMP. It belongs to the virtualization/server monitoring category, bridging Microsoft Virtual Server's native performance counters to standard SNMP tooling. It exposes per-virtual-machine data including CPU utilization, disk I/O byte counts, disk space consumption, and heartbeat status. Its central monitoring use is tracking the software/operational status of virtual machines - CPU load, disk read/write throughput, disk space usage, and heartbeat interval/count (a proxy for VM responsiveness/guest-OS health) - to catch a hung, overloaded, or disk-starved VM. It depends on the Microsoft Virtual Server platform's internal performance-counter API rather than another SNMP MIB, and is deployed on physical hosts running Microsoft Virtual Server (a predecessor to Hyper-V) in Windows-centric virtualization environments. Engineers can download the INFORMANT-VS file directly to load it into their MIB browser.

IPNetwork Monitor allows you to monitor SNMP objects defined in INFORMANT-VS. Use the built-in SNMP Monitoring Browser to explore available variables, view their current values and descriptions, and select the objects you want to monitor. You can then create SNMP monitors, configure thresholds, and receive alerts when monitored values change.

Supported Devices

Microsoft Virtual Server host
Windows-based virtualization host

Monitoring Examples

An administrator can poll the vsVirtualMachineTable, indexed by vsvmIndex, reading vsvmName to identify each guest and vsvmCpuUtilization to spot a VM pegged at high CPU. Comparing vsvmDiskBytesRead/vsvmDiskBytesWritten trends alongside vsvmDiskSpaceUsed (or the vsvmDiskSpaceUsedM variant) would reveal a VM's virtual disk nearing capacity, while a stalled vsvmHeartbeatCount relative to vsvmHeartbeatInterval indicates the guest OS has stopped responding.

What Can Be Monitored

per-VM CPU utilization
VM disk bytes read/written
VM disk space used
VM heartbeat count/interval

Imported Objects

From SNMPv2-SMI

Counter64
Gauge32
Integer32
MODULE-IDENTITY
OBJECT-IDENTITY
OBJECT-TYPE

From SNMPv2-TC

DateAndTime
TruthValue

From WTCS

WtcsDisplayString
informant	OBJECT-IDENTITY

How to Use in IPNetwork Monitor

Example using vsvmDiskBytesRead OID:

Select a Microsoft Virtual Server host (SNMP Informant) as the target host to create a monitor — the SNMP service should be up and running on it. Click New Monitor, then check SNMP Custom on the Favorites tab, click Next, and confirm the host. On the next page, click Select... to open the built-in SNMP MIB Browser and type vsvmDiskBytesRead into the Find box to locate it in the OID tree, selecting the specific row/instance you want to monitor since this is a table column, then select it and click OK. It reports the number of bytes read by all of the virtual hard disks assigned to this virtual machine since the virtual machine was last turned on. On the monitor's Main parameters page you can set the target's SNMP port (default 161), credentials, polling interval, and other settings — see the SNMP Monitor help for details. On the State conditions and Alerting tabs, configure when the monitor should change state and trigger an alert; since this is a Counter64-type OID, Value bounds is the most useful condition here — trigger an alert if the counter increases sharply between polls relative to its normal baseline (in Bytes), since an unexpected spike often reflects a real change in traffic or activity. Click Finish to create the monitor; you can adjust any parameter later.

OIDs

OID symbolic	OID numeric	Type	Access	Description
wmiVirtualServer	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24			The MIB module for informant standard entities.
vsVirtualMachineTable	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1		not-accessible	The VirtualMachine WMI class allows you to obtain information about CPU, disk, and network usage by each virtual machine, as well as the number of heartbeats received.
vsVirtualMachineEntry	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1		not-accessible	None
I32 vsvmIndex	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.1	Integer32	read-only	The value of this object uniquely identifies the instance entry for this class.
STR vsvmName	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.2	WtcsDisplayString	read-only	Name of the virtual machine.
G32 vsvmCpuUtilization	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.3	Gauge32	read-only	Percentage of CPU resources allocated to this virtual machine that are currently in use. A zero indicates that the virtual machine may not be running. A 100 indicates that the virtual machine is consuming all currently allocated resources.
C64 vsvmDiskBytesReadEx	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.4	Counter64	read-only	Number of bytes read by all of the virtual hard disks assigned to this virtual machine since the virtual machine was last turned on.
G32 vsvmDiskSpaceUsed	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.5	Gauge32	read-only	Total disk space used by this virtual machine on all of the disks that are assigned to it.
G32 vsvmDiskSpaceUsedK	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.6	Gauge32	read-only	Total disk space used in kilobytes by this virtual machine on all of the disks that are assigned to it.
G32 vsvmDiskSpaceUsedM	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.7	Gauge32	read-only	Total disk space used in megabytes by this virtual machine on all of the disks that are assigned to it.
C64 vsvmDiskBytesWritten	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.8	Counter64	read-only	Number of bytes written by all virtual hard disks assigned to this virtual machine.
C64 vsvmHeartbeatCount	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.9	Counter64	read-only	Number of heartbeats received since the virtual machine was last turned on.
G32 vsvmHeartbeatInterval	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.10	Gauge32	read-only	Duration of the heartbeat interval in seconds. This data is used by the HeartbeatPercentage counter.
G32 vsvmHeartbeatPercentage	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.11	Gauge32	read-only	Percentage of total expected heartbeats that have been received in the last heartbeat interval. A HeartbeatPercentage of zero may indicate a problem with the guest operating system. A number greater than zero, but less than 100 may indicate that a heavy input/output (I/O) load is causing the heartbeat not to transmit.
G32 vsvmHeartbeatRate	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.12	Gauge32	read-only	The number of heartbeats expected per heartbeat interval. This data is used by the HeartbeatPercentage counter.
C64 vsvmNetworkBytesSent	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.13	Counter64	read-only	Total bytes sent by all virtual networks assigned to this virtual machine. This is a cumulative total.
C64 vsvmNetworkBytesReceived	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.14	Counter64	read-only	Total bytes received by all virtual networks assigned to this virtual machine. This is a cumulative total.
G32 vsvmPhysicalMemoryAllocated	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.15	Gauge32	read-only	The system memory allocated to this virtual machine in bytes. This figure includes 4 MB of video RAM (VRAM). It does not include the additional 32 MB of 'overhead' memory used by each virtual machine in addition to the memory that is allocated to it. If a virtual machine is functioning poorly, you can check this number to make sure that sufficient memory is allocated.
G32 vsvmPhysicalMemoryAllocatedK	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.16	Gauge32	read-only	The system memory allocated to this virtual machine in kilobytes. This figure includes 4 MB of video RAM (VRAM). It does not include the additional 32 MB of 'overhead' memory used by each virtual machine in addition to the memory that is allocated to it. If a virtual machine is functioning poorly, you can check this number to make sure that sufficient memory is allocated.
G32 vsvmPhysicalMemoryAllocatedM	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.17	Gauge32	read-only	The system memory allocated to this virtual machine in megabytes. This figure includes 4 MB of video RAM (VRAM). It does not include the additional 32 MB of 'overhead' memory used by each virtual machine in addition to the memory that is allocated to it. If a virtual machine is functioning poorly, you can check this number to make sure that sufficient memory is allocated.
G32 vsvmUptime	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.1.1.18	Gauge32	read-only	Number of seconds that the virtual machine has been running since it was last turned on.
vsVirtualNetworkTable	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2		not-accessible	The VirtualNetwork WMI class allows you to monitor the usage of each virtual network.
vsVirtualNetworkEntry	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1		not-accessible	None
I32 vsvnIndex	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.1	Integer32	read-only	The value of this object uniquely identifies the instance entry for this class.
STR vsvnName	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.2	WtcsDisplayString	read-only	Name of the physical network adapter to which this virtual network is attached.
C64 vsvnBytesDropped	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.3	Counter64	read-only	Number of bytes dropped by this virtual network. Any number above zero indicates a virtual network failure.
C64 vsvnBytesReceived	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.4	Counter64	read-only	Total bytes received by this virtual network since the first virtual machine attached to it was turned on.
C64 vsvnBytesSent	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.5	Counter64	read-only	Total bytes sent by this virtual network since the first virtual machine attached to it was turned on.
C64 vsvnPacketsDropped	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.6	Counter64	read-only	Number of packets of data dropped by this virtual network. Any number above zero indicates a virtual network failure.
C64 vsvnPacketsReceived	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.7	Counter64	read-only	Total packets of data received by this virtual network since the first virtual machine attached to it was turned on.
C64 vsvnPacketsSent	1.3.6.1.4.1.9600.1.24.2.1.8	Counter64	read-only	Total packets of data sent by this virtual network since the first virtual machine attached to it was turned on.

RFC description

SNMP Informant Virtual Server MIB for monitoring Hyper-V and Virtual Server environments on Windows systems, providing Windows performance and WMI class monitoring through SNMP.

Start monitoring Microsoft Virtual Server host (SNMP Informant) with a free 30-day trial of IPNetwork Monitor. Import MIBs, browse SNMP OIDs, create custom SNMP monitors, configure alerts, and monitor any SNMP-enabled network device from a single console.

Download INFORMANT-VS