Use advanced charts, or create your own custom charts, to see more performance data. Advanced charts can be useful when you are aware of a problem but need more statistical data to pinpoint the source of the trouble.

Advanced charts include the following features:

  • More information. Hover over a data point in a chart and details about that specific data point are displayed.
  • Customizable charts. Change chart settings. To create your own charts, save custom settings.
  • Export to spreadsheet.
  • Save to image file or spreadsheet.

View Advanced Performance Charts in the vSphere Client

Advanced charts support data counters that are not supported in other performance charts.

For example, you can use the Power view to display the vm.power counter and monitor virtual machine power information for hosts.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to an inventory object in the vSphere Client.
  2. Click the Monitor tab, and click Performance.
  3. Click Advanced.
  4. (Optional) To view a different chart, select an option from the View list.
    The amount of historical data displayed in a chart depends on the collection interval and statistics level set for vCenter Server.
  5. (Optional) To view the selected performance chart in a pop-up window, click the Chart Context Menu icon (Menu icon for selecting the file type in which you export the chart.), and click Popup Chart. The chart opens in a new browser window enabling you to navigate within the vSphere Client while keeping the performance chart open in a separate window. You can learn more about this feature in this video.

Change Advanced Chart Settings

You can customize a performance chart by specifying the objects to monitor, the counters to include, the time range, and chart type. You can customize preconfigured chart views and create chart views.

Procedure

  1. Select an inventory object in the vSphere Client.
  2. Click the Monitor tab, and click Performance.
  3. Click Advanced.
  4. Click Chart Options.
  5. In Chart Metrics, select a metric group for the chart.
  6. Select a timespan range for the metric group from the Timespan menu.

    Time range options are not active unless you select Custom interval in the Timespan menu.

    If you choose Custom interval, do one of the following.

    • Select Last and set the number of hours, days, weeks, or months for the amount of time to monitor the object.
    • Select From and select the beginning and end dates.

    You can also customize the time range options by customizing the statistics collection interval setting.

  7. In Counters, select the data counters to display in the chart.
  8. In Target Objects, select the inventory objects to display in the chart.
  9. Select the chart type.

    When selecting the stacked graph option, consider the following.

    • You can select only one item from the list of measurements.
    • Per-virtual-machine stacked graphs are available only for hosts.
    • To display information about the counter’s function and whether the selected metric can be stacked for per-virtual-machine graphs, click a counter description name.
  10. Click OK.

Create a Custom Advanced Chart

You can create your own charts by saving customized chart settings. New charts are added to the View menu and will appear there only when charts for the selected object are being displayed.

Procedure

  1. Select an inventory object in the vSphere Client.
  2. Click the Monitor tab.
  3. Under Performance, click Advanced, and click Chart Options.
  4. Customize chart settings by selecting the chart metrics, counters, objects, timespan and chart type that you want to save as a view.
  5. Click Save Options As....
  6. Enter a name for your custom chart options.
  7. Click OK.

Results

The chart settings are saved and an entry for your chart is added to the View menu on the Advanced Performance page.

Delete a Custom Advanced Chart View

You can delete custom chart views from the vSphere Client.

Procedure

  1. Select an inventory object in the vSphere Client.
  2. Click the Monitor tab, and click Performance.
  3. Click Advanced.
  4. Click Chart Options.
  5. Select a chart and click Delete Options.
  6. Click OK to confirm deletion.
    The chart is deleted, and it is removed from the View menu.

Save Chart Data to a File

You can save data from the advanced performance charts to a file in various graphic formats or in comma-separated values (CSV) format.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, select an inventory object.
  2. Click the Monitor tab, and click Performance.
  3. Click Advanced.
  4. Click the Chart Context Menu icon (Menu icon for selecting the file type in which you export the chart.).
  5. Choose a file type to export to and click the respective option.

Results

The file is saved to your local system in the format you specified.