Collecting data with the Discovery Connector - AWS Application Discovery Service

Collecting data with the Discovery Connector

Important

We recommend that customers who are currently using Discovery Connector transition to the new Agentless Collector. For more information, see Discovery Connector.

The Discovery Connector collects information about your VMware vCenter Server hosts and VMs. However, you can capture this data only if VMware vCenter Server tools are installed. To make sure the AWS account you are using has the required permission for this task, see AWS managed policies for AWS Application Discovery Service.

Following, you can find an inventory of the information collected by the Discovery Connector.

Table legend for Discovery Connector collected data:
  • Collected data is in measurements of kilobytes (KB) unless stated otherwise.

  • Equivalent data in the Migration Hub console is reported in megabytes (MB).

  • Data fields denoted with an asterisk (*) are only available in the .csv files that are produced from the connector's API export function.

  • The polling period is in intervals of approximately 60 minutes.

  • Data fields denoted with a double asterisk (**) currently return a null value.

Data field Description
applicationConfigurationId* ID of the migration application the VM is grouped under
avgCpuUsagePct Average percentage of CPU usage over polling period
avgDiskBytesReadPerSecond Average number of bytes read from disk over polling period
avgDiskBytesWrittenPerSecond Average number of bytes written to disk over polling period
avgDiskReadOpsPerSecond** Average number of read I/O operations per second null
avgDiskWriteOpsPerSecond** Average number of write I/O operations per second
avgFreeRAM Average free RAM expressed in MB
avgNetworkBytesReadPerSecond Average amount of throughput of bytes read per second
avgNetworkBytesWrittenPerSecond Average amount of throughput of bytes written per second
configId Application Discovery Service assigned ID to the discovered VM
configType Type of resource discovered
connectorId ID of the Discovery Connector virtual appliance
cpuType vCPU for a VM, actual model for a host
datacenterId ID of the vCenter
hostId* ID of the VM host
hostName Name of host running the virtualization software
hypervisor Type of hypervisor
id ID of server
lastModifiedTimeStamp* Latest date and time of data collection before data export
macAddress MAC address of the VM
manufacturer Maker of the virtualization software
maxCpuUsagePct Max. percentage of CPU usage during polling period
maxDiskBytesReadPerSecond Max. number of bytes read from disk over polling period
maxDiskBytesWrittenPerSecond Max. number of bytes written to disk over polling period
maxDiskReadOpsPerSecond** Max. number of read I/O operations per second
maxDiskWriteOpsPerSecond** Max. number of write I/O operations per second
maxNetworkBytesReadPerSecond Max. amount of throughput of bytes read per second
maxNetworkBytesWrittenPerSecond Max. amount of throughput of bytes written per second
memoryReservation* Limit to avoid overcommitment of memory on VM
moRefId Unique vCenter Managed Object Reference ID
name* Name of VM or network (user specified)
numCores Number of independent processing units within CPU
numCpus Number of central processing units on VM
numDisks** Number of disks on VM
numNetworkCards** Number of network cards on VM
osName Operating system name on VM
osVersion Operating system version on VM
portGroupId* ID of group of member ports of VLAN
portGroupName* Name of group of member ports of VLAN
powerState* Status of power
serverId Application Discovery Service assigned ID to the discovered VM
smBiosId* ID/version of the system management BIOS
state* Status of the Discovery Connector virtual appliance
toolsStatus Operational state of VMware tools (See Sorting data collectors in the AWS Migration Hub console for a complete list.)
totalDiskSize Total capacity of disk expressed in MB
totalRAM Total amount of RAM available on VM in MB
type Type of host
vCenterId Unique ID number of a VM
vCenterName* Name of the vCenter host
virtualSwitchName* Name of the virtual switch
vmFolderPath Directory path of VM files
vmName Name of the virtual machine

Collect Discovery Connector data

After you deploy and congifure the Discovery Connector in your VMware environment, you can restart data collections if it stops. You can start or stop data collection through the console or by making API calls through the AWS CLI. Both of these methods are described in the following procedures.

Using the Migration Hub Console

The following procedure shows how to start or stop the Discovery Connector data collection process, on the Data Collectors page of the Migration Hub console.

To start or stop data collection
  1. In the navigation pane, choose Data Collectors.

  2. Choose the Connectors tab.

  3. Select the check box of the connector you want to start or stop.

  4. Choose Start data collection or Stop data collection.

Note

If you don’t see inventory information after starting data collection with the connector, confirm that you have registered the connector with your vCenter Server.

Using the AWS CLI

To start the Discovery Connector data collection process from the AWS CLI, the AWS CLI must first be installed in your environment, and then you must set the CLI to use your selected Migration Hub home Region.

To install the AWS CLI and start data collection
  1. Install the AWS CLI for your operating system (Linux, macOS, or Windows). See the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide for instructions.

  2. Open the Command prompt (Windows) or Terminal (Linux or macOS).

    1. Type aws configure and press Enter.

    2. Enter your AWS Access Key ID and AWS Secret Access Key.

    3. Enter your home Region for the Default Region Name. For example, us-west-2.

    4. Enter text for Default Output Format.

  3. To find the ID of the connector you want to start or stop data collection for, type the following command to see the connector's ID:

    aws discovery describe-agents --filters condition=EQUALS,name=hostName,values=connector
  4. To start data collection by the connector, type the following command:

    aws discovery start-data-collection-by-agent-ids --agent-ids <connector ID>
    Note

    If you don’t see inventory information after starting data collection with the connector, confirm that you have registered the connector with your vCenter Server.

    To stop data collection by the connector, type the following command:

    aws discovery stop-data-collection-by-agent-ids --agent-ids <connector ID>