Performance monitoring of Virtual Machines (VMs) of type I and II hypervisors with SNMPv3

Abstract

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the protocol which has the capability to monitor the performance of IP based devices. Also it can monitor components installed on these devices to determine whether they are working or not. In an environment with hundreds of installed servers, it is not possible to check if each machine is working properly. SNMP can also be a used in cloud computing environment for the monitoring of the hardware, infrastructure or virtual machines. To date, not much work has been done on cloud computing monitoring with SNMP. In this research, empirical results of using SNMPv3 to monitor Virtual Machines configured on Type I and II hypervisors and the hypervisor itself vmware ESXi 5.5 resources. Additionally, this research involved the exploration of efficient ways for monitoring the resources and this will lead to the customisation of MIB with Agent X to provide some management features using SNMPv3. The completed research work will consists of four components: (1). Network Management System (NMS), where Zabbix will be used as NMS; (2). SNMP Agent, which will be installed on the devices which need to be monitored; (3). Virtual Machines; (4). Type I and II Hypervisor.