8.1.6 Network
The Network Dashboard uses vCenter Operations Manager data collected from vCenter and from Hyperic. The Hyperic server uses SNMP to collect data from a Cisco 3550 switch.
The completed network dashboard widget is displayed in Figure 56, and is built using the following four widgets:
Outbound/Inbound Packet Rate Metric Graph (
Figure 57).

Network Performance
Metric Graph (Figure 60).
Figure 56. Network Dashboard Widget
This example monitors port 48 on the switch for outbound and inbound packets. The metric graph displays these two metrics.
Table 24. Metric Graph Metrics
Metric | Unit |
Cisco IOS Interface:Port48 | Outbound packets per second |
Cisco IOS Interface:Port48 | Inbound packets per second |
The completed widget appears as shown in the following figure.
Figure 57. Outbound and Inbound Packet Rate Metric Graph
Using the Scoreboard Widget and some cluster-wide statistics, the following widget can be created to show statistics on inbound packets per second network bandwidth usage and errors. This widget uses the following metrics.
Table 25. Example Scoreboard Widget Metrics
Metric | Unit | Green Range | Yellow Range | Orange Range | Red Range |
Net Cluster Usage | KBps | 100 | 100–1000 | 1000–5000 | 5000 |
Net Cluster Demand | % | 50 | 50–60 | 60–70 | 70 |
Net Cluster Workload | % | 50 | 50–60 | 60–70 | 70 |
Net Max Throughput | Kbps | 6000 | 6000–6500 | 6500–7000 | 7000 |
NoteThese threshold/ranges are only examples. These values should be based on the cluster design threshold values and the customer requirements.
The following figure shows the completed widget.
Figure 58. Completed Network Scoreboard Widget
A Heat Map widget can be used to display statistics for physical NIC usage in the ESXi host. The heat map settings for this widget are as shown in the following table.
Table 26. Example Heat Map Settings
Metric | Value |
Refresh Widget Content | On |
Widget Refresh Interval | 300 |
Group by | Resource kind |
Mode | Instance |
Resource Kinds | Host systems |
Attribute Kinds | Network | usage rate (KBps) |
Tags to filter | Cluster compute resource | cluster |
The following figure shows the completed heat map widget.
Figure 59. Physical NIC Heat Map Widget
The Metric Graph widget can display historical network details regarding usage and errors. The Widget displays information on both the physical and virtual networking. The widget is configured with the following metrics.
Table 27. Example Metric Graph Widget Metrics
Metric | Units |
Network | Usage Rate (KBps) |
Network:Physical | Packets Dropped |
Network:Physical | Usage Rate (KBps) |
Network:Virtual | Packets Dropped (%) |
Network:Virtual | Usage Rate (KBps) |
The following figure shows the completed widget.
Figure 60. Network Performance Metric Graph Widget