When you configure an Aggregator adapter instance, you must specify a config file. The config file specifies what kind of information an adapter instance must collect. Out-of-the-box, the Aggregator Management Pack is shipped with config file named as federation_config.

The config file retrieves the following information.
  • Resources
  • Metrics
  • Properties

For example, if you want the adapter to collect information like host system and CPU metrics of that object, then this information has to be defined in the config file. When these parameters are added, then the adapter instance starts collecting information pertaining to the required specification. The changes are reflected in the config file only when the adapter instance is restarted.

With Aggregator Management Pack, you can retrieve a subset of objects from an object type of a child VMware Aria Operations. The adapter provides a mechanism to filter the subset by either using properties or tags.

The tag-based filter used is:

<Filter> <Tag category="SOME_CATEGORY" name="SOME_TAG" /> </Filter>

The property-based filter used is:

<Filter> <Property attrkey="SOME_KEY" value="SOME_VALUE"/> </Filter>
Note: You can use only one filter for a given object type, otherwise, the configuration file validation fails.
To create filters for resource kinds, add the filtering element immediately after the resource kind element in the config file. For example: 
<ResourceKind resourceKindKey="...">
        <Filter>
            <Property attrkey="..." value="..."/>
        </Filter>
        <Metric ..."/>
        <Property .../>
    </ResourceKind>

Types of Config Files Used in the Aggregator Management Pack

Default Config File
Aggregator Management Pack contains a default config file. The Aggregator Management Pack dashboards are based on these config files. The default config file contains information of vCenter to host level and not VM level. The config file also provides information of vCenter operation adapter objects, VMware SDDC Health Monitoring Solution adapter, and VMware Site Recovery Manager adapter.
Note: The default federation_config file is aligned with the latest VMware Aria Operations. Ensure that the desired metrics/properties from the older versions (which no longer exist in the newer versions) are mentioned in the config file.
Heterogeneous Config File
You are not limited to using the same config file for all adapter instances when you are configuring multiple adapter instances for a separate child of VMware Aria Operations instance. You can collect different data from different child VMware Aria Operations instances. You can have different level of information in different config files.