To manage your vCenter Server instances in VMware Aria Operations, you must configure a cloud account for each vCenter Server instance. The cloud account requires the credentials that are used for communication with the target vCenter Server.

Note: Any cloud account credentials you add are shared with other cloud account administrators and VMware Aria Operations collector hosts. Other administrators might use these credentials to configure a new cloud account or to move a cloud account to a new host.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that you know the vCenter Server credentials that have sufficient privileges to connect and collect data, see Privileges Required for Configuring a vCenter Adapter Instance. If the provided credentials have limited access to objects in vCenter Server, all users, regardless of their vCenter Server privileges see only the objects that the provided credentials can access. At a minimum, the user account must have Read privileges and the Read privileges must be assigned at the data center or vCenter Server level.

Procedure

  1. From the left menu, click Data Sources > Integrations > Accounts tab.
  2. Click Add.
  3. On the Accounts Type page, click vCenter.
  4. Enter a display name and description for the cloud account.
    • Display name. Enter the name for the vCenter Server instance as you want it to appear in VMware Aria Operations. A common practice is to include the IP address so that you can readily identify and differentiate between instances.
    • Description. Enter any additional information that helps you manage your instances.
  5. (Optional) Select the Physical Data Center you want to associate with the vCenter Server cloud account.
    If no physical data center is created or if you want to create a new physical data center for your cloud account, you can add a new physical data center. For more information, see Adding Physical Data Centers in VMware Aria Operations
  6. In the vCenter Server text box, enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance to which you are connecting.
    The vCenter Server FQDN or IP address must be reachable from all nodes in the VMware Aria Operations cluster.
  7. To add credentials for the vCenter Server instance, click the Add icon, and enter the required credentials. The vCenter credential must have Performance > Modify intervals permission activated in the target vCenter to collect VM guest metrics.

    Optionally, you can use alternate user credentials for actions. Enter an Action User Name and Password. If you do not enter an action user name and password, the default user specified is considered for actions.

    Note: Credentials are stored in VMware Aria Operations and can be used for one or more instances of the vCenter Server.
    Note: To monitor application services and operating systems, it is recommended that you enter action credentials with guest operations privileges such as guest operation alias modification, guest operation alias query, guest operation modifications, guest operation program execution, guest operation queries.
  8. Determine which VMware Aria Operations collector or collector group is used to manage the cloud account. If you have only one cloud account, select Default collector group. If you have multiple collectors or collector groups in your environment, and you want to distribute the workload to optimize performance, select the collector or collector group to manage the adapter processes for this instance.
  9. (Optional) The collector for VMware Aria Operations can also be the cloud proxy. Select the cloud proxy you just deployed as the collector for this vCenter cloud account.
  10. The cloud account is configured to run actions on objects in the vCenter Server from VMware Aria Operations. If you do not want to run actions, deselect Activate for Operational Actions.
  11. Click Validate Connection to validate the connection with your vCenter Server instance.
  12. In the Review and Accept Certificate dialog box, review the certificate information.
    • If the certificate presented in the dialog box matches the certificate for your target vCenter Server, click OK.
    • If you do not recognize the certificate as valid, click Cancel. The test fails and the connection to vCenter Server is not completed. You must provide a valid vCenter Server URL or verify the certificate on the vCenter Server is valid before completing the adapter configuration.
  13. To modify the advanced options regarding collectors, object discovery, or change events, expand the Advanced Settings.
    For information about these advanced settings, see Cloud Account Information - vSphere Account Options.
  14. Click Manage Registrations, enter the credentials to register your VMware Aria Operations instance in vCenter Server, and then click Register.
    • Enter username and password for a user with vCenter Server register/unregister privileges.
    • Select the collection credentials checkbox.
  15. Click Add to save the configurations.
    The vCenter Server adapter instance gets saved.

Results

The cloud account is added to the list. VMware Aria Operations begins collecting metrics, properties, and events from the vCenter Server instance. Depending on the number of managed objects, the initial collection can take more than one collection cycle. A standard collection cycle begins every five minutes.

What to do next

You can activate vSAN Configuration for your cloud account. For more information, see Configure a vSAN Adapter Instance .

You can use the vCenter Server for service discovery, see Configure Service and Application Discovery.