Vmware ESX Virtualcenter Help!

[Cheeky_Chappie]

Hi,

I'm new to ESX and was wondering if the few Vmware experts on here can help me.

We have a single Vmware ESX Server 3.5.0 running a few VMs.
Im looking at some sort of monitoring and i believe that Virtualcenter can do this along with email alerts.

As the person who bought the ESX licence has now left the company, and left us with sod-all documentation, ive managed to find a keys for the following. :-


Virtual Center Agent 1 for ESX,

SMP for ESX Server 2

VMware ESX Server 2

VMotion 1.0 (2-Processor)

The question is, if i was to monitor this vmhost would it be better to build a Virtual Center and use that? or somehow put MIBS on the current VMhost and incorporate these into our current monitoring system?

Is VirtualCenter free? if not, how much, which version would i need to use in order for the current VMhost to be controlled by it.

Cheers all

 

[Woodentop]

Virtual center is not free and is really aimed at large deployments of ESX boxes as it give you the enterprise features vmotion, drs & ha.

What is your current monitoring system? What type of things do you want to monitor?

 

[dk]

this should help

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1011102;jsessionid=9BAA35E48197FB4348FCB3ECCC6FD2F0

basically, VC is your only option for vmware alerts but its quite expensive, nearly as much as an ESX host itself from memory.

If you want hardware alerts then depending on the server this can be done. For a HP you can install the insight agents into the host and report to HP SIM.