VMware Aria Operations for Networks enables centralized network visibilty of VMware Cloud Foundation components.

Data Source Design for VMware Aria Operations for Networks

Data sources in VMware Aria Operations for Networks facilitate integration between VMware Aria Operations for Networks and components in VMware Cloud Foundation. These integrations collect data and provide insights into the network flows and security of your VMware Cloud Foundation instance and its applications. You integrate these data sources with the management domain and each VI workload domain as applicable.

You set up the data sources to enable VMware Aria Operations for Networks to monitor the network traffic. Before you can configure data sources you must deploy and configure one or more VMware Aria Operations for Networks collector nodes in your environment.
Table 1. VMware Aria Operations for Networks Data Sources for a VMware Cloud Foundation Instance
VMware Cloud Foundation Components Description
vCenter Server

Monitors network traffic in vCenter Server and ESXi hosts.

NSX

 Monitors network traffic in NSX, logical switching, and routing.
Table 2. Design Decisions on Data Sources for VMware Aria Operations for Networks

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

INV-VAON-CFG-013

Configure a vCenter Server data source in VMware Aria Operations for Networks, for each management domain and VI workload domain vCenter Server.

Provides network visibility to the VMware Cloud Foundation instance, for vSphere networking.

You must configure a data source for the management domain and each VI workload domain vCenter Server instance in each region.

INV-VAON-CFG-014

For each vCenter Server data source, enable NetFlow on each vSphere Distributed Switch within the domain.

Provides the collection of network flows via the IPFIX protocol.

For the management domain and VI workload domains in each region, VMware Aria Operations for Networks will automatically update the NetFlow settings for each cluster's vSphere Distributed Switch.

INV-VAON-CFG-015

Configure an NSX Manager data source in VMware Aria Operations for Networks, for each management domain and VI workload domain NSX Local Manager cluster.

Provides network visibility to the VMware Cloud Foundation instance, for NSX networking.

You must configure a NSX Manager data source for the management domain and VI workload domains in each region.

INV-VAON-CFG-016

For each NSX data source, enable IPFIX for the distributed firewall.

Provides the collection of network flows via the IPFIX protocol.

The distributed firewall service must be enabled on the NSX Local Manager for the management domain and VI workload domain.

The service account used to integrate VMware Aria Operations for Networks with NSX requires the Enterprise Admin role to be assigned in NSX Local Manager for the management domain and each VI workload domain.

INV-VAON-CFG-017

For each NSX Manager data source, enable latency metric collection.

Provides the collection of latency metrics from NSX Transport Nodes.

Any firewall rule sets from all ESXi hosts to the VMware Aria Operations for Networks collector must allow traffic on TCP 1991.

INV-VAON-CFG-018

For environments using NSX Federation use the NSX Local Manager as the data source.

NSX Global Managers can not be added as a data source in VMware Aria Operations for Networks. NSX Federation data is fetched from the NSX Local Managers.

You must configure the NSX Local Manager as the NSX Manager data source if you are using NSX Federation.