Which Performance Counters are available in each Statistic Level?

When analysing performance metrics in the vSphere Web Client (Monitor > Performance) or in the vSphere Client (Performance Tab) you might have seen the following messages instead of performance graphs:

"No data available"

"Data is not collected for the current statistics level. Increase the statistics level to view the graph."

Statistic parameters are "Interval Duration" and "Statistics Level". This is what you configure in the vCenter Server settings:

Interval Duration determines the frequency at which statistics are stores:

• Realtime (20 seconds), save for 1 hour - not configurable, all metrics available
• 5 minutes, save for X days
• 30 minutes, save for X weeks
• 2 hours, save for X month
• 1 day, save for X month

Statistic Level determines the amount of data gathered and which counters are available for displayed. The default Level 1 stores the fewest metrics, Level 4 stores all metrics supported by the vCenter Server.

With vSphere 6.0, vCenter Server supports 544 metrics but as there are only 4 statistic levels it is not clear what metrics are included in each level. This post helps to understand what metrics are included in each level, and how you can add single metrics to lower levels. This might be helpful if you need single metrics from level 2, but do not want to activate all level 2 metrics.

Please note that changing the collection level beyond level 1 or adding a large number of data counters to collection level 1, might result in a significant reduced performance.

The number in brackets is the "Per Device Statistic Level" which is typically only available in higher levels. Some metrics are available as aggregated metric and for each device, or object. A descriptive example are datastore metrics. They are available as aggregated metric for the entire host and for individual datastores:

Object Index

• ESXi Host
• Virtual Machine
• Cluster
• Datacenter
• Resource Pool
• Datastore
• Change collection level for metrics

ESXi Host performance counters

Virtual Machine performance counters

Cluster performance counters

Datacenter performance counters

Resource Pool performance counters

Datastore performance counters

Change collection level for metrics

1. Download and unzip LevelMappingUtility.zip (Also available in KB2009532 from VMware). The archive contains the required Power CLI functions in VMware.VimAutomation.PowerCliExtensions.CounterLevelMapping.psm1
2. Open PowerCLI and import the module

3. PS> Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.PowerCliExtensions.CounterLevelMapping.psm1

4. Identify the counter you want to change (Full list here). In this example I am going to map all CPU Usage graphs to level 1. The counter for CPU Usage is cpu.usage.*
5. Verify the current configuration:

   PS> Get-PxCounterLevelMapping | where { $_.Name -like "cpu.usage.*" }
   
   Name                AggregateLevel      PerDeviceLevel
   ----                --------------      --------------
   cpu.usage.none      4                   4
   cpu.usage.average   1                   3
   cpu.usage.minimum   4                   4
   cpu.usage.maximum   4                   4
   

6. Map the counters to Level 1

   PS> Get-PxCounterLevelMapping | where { $_.Name -like "cpu.usage.*" } | Set-PxCounterLevelMapping -AggregateLevel 1 -PerDeviceLevel 1

7. All CPU Usage counters are now available in Statistic Level 1

You can reset counters to thir default with the -Reset option:

PS> Get-PxCounterLevelMapping | where { $_.Name -like "cpu.usage.*" } | Set-PxCounterLevelMapping -Reset