3.12 Collecting Disk Utilization Counters for Windows Machines

In PlateSpin Recon, the deployment and undeployment of Windows Disk Counters add-on on the target Windows machine is not coupled with the starting and stopping of monitoring of target machines. After you inventory the target machines, you can choose to collect data for additional monitoring counters by deploying the appropriate add-on on the target machine. Subsequently, if you do not want PlateSpin Recon to collect the additional data, you can undeploy the add-on from the target machine. PlateSpin Recon currently provides only the Windows Disk Counters add-on. By default, the disk counters are not collected as part of monitoring of the target machines.

PlateSpin Recon provides you the flexibility to choose the granularity at which you want to the collect the monitoring data for inventoried Windows machines. PlateSpin Recon allows you to collect additional disk-level and volume-level counters for the inventoried Windows machines by deploying the Windows Disk Counters add-on. If you do not want PlateSpin Recon to collect the additional data, you can undeploy the add-on from the target machine. You can deploy or undeploy the add-on on Windows machines. Although the deploy and undeploy add-on options are available for the Citrix XenServer and Virtual Center machines, the Windows Disk Counters add-on is deployed or undeployed on the Windows virtual machines that are hosted on the Citrix XenServer and Virtual Center machines.

The Windows Disk Counters add-on collects data for the following additional disk utilization counters:

When you deploy the add-on on the target Windows machines, the disk utilization and disk allocation data of these machines is available in the Disk Allocation and Volume Utilization reports. For more information on the reports, see Section 5.0, Generating and Viewing Charts and Reports.

NOTE:By default, PlateSpin Recon collects data for the additional disk utilization counters for non-Windows machines.

Review the following sections:

3.12.1 Deploying an Add-On

You can deploy a PlateSpin Recon add-on on a target Windows machine after you inventory the target machine and before or after you start monitoring of the machine.

To deploy an add-on on a target Windows machine:

  1. In the Data Center Explorer, right-click the target Windows machine, click Add-On, then click Deploy.

    The Deploy Add-On dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the Add-On Name drop-down list, select the add-on you want to deploy. By default, Windows Disk Counters Add-On is selected.

    PlateSpin Recon currently supports deployment of the Windows Disk Counters add-on only.

  3. (Conditional) If the Remote Registry service has dependent services, decide how you want to restart the services that are dependent on the Remote Registry service.

    • If you want the dependent services to be automatically restarted after the deployment of the add-on, select the Automatically restart the services which are dependent on the Remote Registry Service check box.

    • If you want to manually restart the dependent services at a later time, leave the Automatically restart the services which are dependent on the Remote Registry Service check box deselected.

    IMPORTANT:The deployment of the Windows Disk Counters add-on automatically restarts the Remote Registry service on the target machine.

  4. Click OK.

    After the deployment job is completed, the HWInputMonPerfInfo.dll is deployed on the target 32-bit Windows machine and the HWInputMonPerfInfo64.dll is deployed on the target 64-bit Windows machine. The DLLs are registered to perfmon that runs on the target machines as an extension DLL for collecting the additional counters. The content of PlateSpinRecon_installation_directory\services\monitoring\windows directory located on the PlateSpin Recon Server is copied to the %systemroot%\PlateSpinRecon-DiskUtildirectory on the target machine. %systemroot% is the complete path of the WINDOWS directory such as c:\WINDOWS or c:\WINNT.

  5. (Conditional) If you chose to manually restart the Remote Registry service and the services that are dependent on the Remote Registry service in Step 3, restart the services on the target machine.

  6. (Conditional) If you deployed the add-on while the target machine was being monitored, perform the following tasks:

    1. Stop monitoring the target machine.

    2. Start monitoring the target machine.

      IMPORTANT:If you do not stop and start monitoring the target machine, the Windows disk utilization counters data is not collected.

  7. To view the deployment status of the add-on, right-click the target machine in the Data Center Explorer, click Properties, then click the General tab. The deployment status is displayed as a message in Notes.

    For example, the following message is displayed if the deployment of the add-on is successful:

    Windows Disk Counter Add-on is deployed.
    

After you deploy the Windows Disk Counters add-on on a target Windows machine, if you delete the machine object from the PlateSpin Recon Client, following is the resultant on the machine:

  • If the target Windows machine does not have dependents on the Remote Registry service, all the files pertaining to the Windows Disk Counters add-on are deleted, perfmon counters are undeployed, and the Remote Registry service is restarted. However, messages indicating these operations are not displayed in the Job Explorer in the PlateSpin Recon Client.

  • If the target Windows machine has dependents on the Remote Registry service, all the files pertaining to the Windows Disk Counters add-on are deleted and perfmon counters are undeployed but the Remote Registry service is not restarted. However, messages indicating these operations are not displayed in the Job Explorer in the PlateSpin Recon Client.

3.12.2 Undeploying an Add-On

  1. In the Data Center Explorer, right-click the target Windows machine from which you want to undeploy the PlateSpin Recon add-on, then click Add-On, then click UnDeploy.

    The UnDeploy Add-On dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the Add-On Name drop-down list, select the add-on you want to undeploy. By default, Windows Disk Counters Add-On is selected.

    PlateSpin Recon currently supports undeployment of the Windows Disk Counters add-on only.

  3. (Conditional) If the Remote Registry service has dependent services, decide how you want to restart the services that are dependent on the Remote Registry service.

    • If you want the dependent services to be automatically restarted after the undeployment of the add-on, select the Automatically restart the services which are dependent on the Remote Registry Service check box.

    • If you want to manually restart the dependent services at a later time, leave the Automatically restart the services which are dependent on the Remote Registry Service check box deselected.

      IMPORTANT: The undeployment of the Windows Disk Counters add-on automatically restarts the Remote Registry service on the target machine.

  4. Click OK.

    After the undeployment is completed, the %systemroot%\PlateSpinRecon-DiskUtil directory on the target machine is deleted. The HWInputMonPerfInfo.dll and HWInputMonPerfInfo64.dll are unregistered from the perfmon running on the target 32-bit Windows machine and the 64-bit Windows machine respectively.

  5. (Conditional) If you chose to manually restart the Remote Registry service and the services that are dependent on the Remote Registry service in Step 3, restart the services on the target machine.

  6. (Conditional) If you undeployed the add-on while the target machine was being monitored, perform the following tasks:

    1. Stop monitoring the target machine.

    2. Start monitoring the target machine.

      NOTE:If you do not stop and start monitoring the target machine, you encounter the following error:

      Category does not exist
      

      For more information on how to troubleshoot the error, see Monitoring of a Windows machine displays the “Category does not exist” error in the monitoring log.

After you undeploy the add-on from the target Windows machine, the add-on deployment message is removed from the Properties page of the target machine (General tab > Notes section).