The three types of Telegraf agents are product-managed agent, open source agent, and user-managed agent in VMware Aria Operations.

  • Product-managed agent: Managed by VMware Aria Operations. You can install and uninstall (only for VMs managed by the vCenter Server cloud account), activate application services, and manage the life cycle of the Telegraf agents such as upgrade the agent, start the agent, stop the agent, and so on. For more details, see Additional Operations from the Manage Telegraf Agents Page.
  • Open source agent: Refers to the open source Telegraf agent that you use to monitor curated and non-curated application services completely by yourself. You can install the open source Telegraf agent using a script and also configure it using the helper script to send data to VMware Aria Operations. For more information, see Monitoring Applications using Open Source Telegraf on a Linux Platform and Monitoring Applications using Open Source Telegraf on a Windows Platform. You cannot manage the life-cycle of open source telegraf agents in VMware Aria Operations, such as activate an application service, and stop/start upgrade. You can only view configured application instances and their data collection. Agent management is carried out on the target machine by the user.
  • User-managed agent: User-managed agents were used to monitor physical servers in prior releases. Please note the following:
    • Available only if you upgrade from previous versions of VMware Aria Operations. If you want to continue with the existing user-managed agents you can only view the metrics collected and you do not have to make any changes in VMware Aria Operations.
    • Deprecated for fresh install. You will not be able to install new user-managed agents.
    • As a first time user if you want to monitor physical servers, use the product-managed Telegraf agent and use the helper script for installation of the Telegraf agent. For more information, see Install/Uninstall an Agent Using a Script on Linux Platforms and Install/Uninstall an Agent Using a Script on a Windows Platform