Unlocking the Power of Metric-Based Search in Aria Operations

When managing a large, virtualized environment, finding objects in Aria Operations can be challenging, especially when you don’t know the object name. Metric-based search, a feature introduced in Aria Operations 8.12, allows you to search for objects based on their metrics or properties—empowering you to quickly identify issues, even without specific names.

I recently posted about replacing some CPUs in my primary homelab system (https://enterpriseadmins.org/blog/virtualization/how-i-doubled-my-homelab-cpu-capacity-for-200-xeon-gold-6230-upgrade/). Prior to making this change, I knew I had a couple of VMs with rather high CPU Ready values. I suspected that the CPU ready would have decreased given the additional cores. I had an idea of a couple of VMs that were likely affected but wanted to leverage metric-based search to make sure I wasn’t missing any.

What Is Metric-Based Search?

Metric-Based search was introduced in Aria Operations 8.12 almost two years ago (https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2023/04/metric-based-search.html). It allows us to use metrics and properties in our search queries. Instead of typing a VM name, we can type a query for all VMs with high CPU Ready or Usage, like this:

Metric: Virtual Machine where CPU|Ready % > 2 or CPU|Usage % > 20

We start out by typing ‘Metric’, telling the search box we want to search using a metric, we then specify the object type of virtual machine, and finally use a where clause to provide additional metrics we wish to look at. The search bar helps auto-complete the entries and will have a green check once we have the syntax correct.

In this case the query only returns one VM… my Aria Automation VM which currently has >20% CPU usage. I’m not able to use the ‘transformation’ selection, because the environment has 225 VMs, which is larger than the maximum scope of 200 as called out in the tool tip below:

Using the ‘ChildOf’ Clause to Narrow Down Results

To refine my search results, I use the ‘childOf’ clause, which allows me to narrow down the query to a specific ESXi host. This is especially useful when I know the VMs I’m looking for are on the same host but don’t know their names.

Metric: Virtual Machine where CPU|Ready % > 2 or CPU|Usage % > 20 childOf core-esxi-34.example.com 

This unlocked the filter ‘transformation’ drop down list, and I can now look at maximum values instead of the current values. I could have used a different object in my childOf query, like a vSphere Folder, distributed port group, Datacenter, or custom datacenter — really any object that is a parent of virtual machine in the inventory hierarchy. We can see that more VMs now match our criteria. Each of these VMs had CPU Ready above 2% prior to installing the new CPUs. After installing new CPUs the values are much lower.

Understanding the Impact of CPU Speed on Performance Metrics

Interestingly, in the above images we can see that while CPU Ready has decreased substantially, CPU Usage has actually increased. I believe this to be due to the clock speed of the CPU cores. Previously the cores were 3.8ghz but they are now 2.1ghz. To do the same amount of work, the slower clock speed CPUs must run at a higher percentage.

Other Use Cases for Metric-Based Search

The side-by-side comparison of metrics in the metric-based search are really helpful. It included the CPU Ready and CPU Usage values as those properties were the first two metrics that are part of my query. If I adjust my query to have three metrics, such as:

Metric: Virtual Machine where CPU|Ready % > 2 or CPU|Usage % > 20 or Memory|Usage % > 5 childOf core-esxi-34.example.com 

I can select which metric is displayed in the left or right column using the column selector in the bottom left of the screen:

In the above examples, we are looking specifically at metrics of VMs. However, we can query properties the same way as well, and also query for different object types. Here are a few examples:

VMs that have more than 5 VMDKs (property): metric: Virtual Machine where Configuration|Number of VMDKs > 5

ESXi hosts that have less than 16 CPU cores (metric): Metric: Host System where Hardware|CPU Information|Number of CPU Cores < 16

Datastores with reclaimable orphaned disks (metric) and type (property): Metric: Datastore where Reclaimable|Orphaned Disks|Disk Space GB > 1 and Summary|Type equals 'NFS'

Conclusion: The Power of Metric-Based Search in Aria Operations

Metric-based search in Aria Operations is a powerful tool that helps you find the right objects even when you don’t know their names. By leveraging metrics like CPU usage or memory usage, you can quickly identify performance bottlenecks and optimize your virtualized infrastructure.

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