VMWARE VSPHERE INVENTORY

VMware vSphere Inventory
in Your Cloud Dashboard

Still switching between vSphere Client and your cloud console? CloudVista syncs your full on-premises vCenter inventory — VMs, ESXi hosts, clusters, datastores — on the same dashboard as AWS, Azure, OCI, and GCP. No agents. No complex setup.

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Contents

  1. Why VMware Inventory Belongs in Your Cloud Dashboard
  2. How CloudVista Connects to vCenter
  3. vSphere Resource Types Discovered
  4. Resource Metadata Collected
  5. Health Monitoring for vSphere Resources
  6. Setup: 3-Step vCenter Integration
  7. Frequently Asked Questions

Why VMware Inventory Belongs in Your Cloud Dashboard

The cloud-first narrative is compelling, but reality is messier. Most organisations with more than 5 years of history still run significant workloads on-premises — often on VMware vSphere / vCenter environments that represent years of capital investment and are unlikely to be fully migrated to the cloud any time soon.

The result: infrastructure teams manage two completely separate worlds. The cloud side has visibility (AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Monitor, OCI Console). The on-premises side has the vSphere Client — a powerful tool, but completely disconnected from cloud operations.

The gap this creates: When someone asks "how many VMs do we have in total across everything?" the answer requires logging into vCenter, exporting a CSV, opening the AWS console, doing the same for Azure, and manually combining the data. This is a multi-hour task that most teams just don't do — which means their total infrastructure picture is always incomplete.

CloudVista closes this gap. By connecting to vCenter with a read-only service account, your full on-premises vSphere inventory appears in the same dashboard as your cloud resources — same search, same filters, same health checks, same sync schedule. No separate tool, no manual exports.

How CloudVista Connects to vCenter

CloudVista uses the VMware vSphere Web Services API (SOAP-based) — the same API that VMware's own management tools use. Connection is made from CloudVista's backend to your vCenter server over HTTPS on port 443.

Requirements:

What CloudVista does NOT require:

Self-hosted CloudVista users: If you're running CloudVista on-premises via Docker Compose (Enterprise plan), the vCenter connection runs directly from your server — no public internet access to vCenter required. This is the recommended deployment for air-gapped environments.

vSphere Resource Types Discovered

CloudVista syncs 10 VMware vSphere resource types:

Virtual Machines

All VMs — powered on, off, and suspended — with full configuration metadata.

ESXi Hosts

Physical hosts with CPU, memory, version, and connection state.

Compute Clusters

HA / DRS configuration, aggregate capacity, host and VM count.

Datastores

VMFS, NFS, and vSAN datastores with capacity and free space %.

Datacenters

vCenter datacenter objects as the top-level organisational unit.

Distributed Virtual Switches

DVS configuration and port group membership.

Distributed Port Groups

VLAN configuration, port binding, connected VMs.

Resource Pools

CPU and memory reservations, limits, and shares.

VM Templates

Template inventory — OS, hardware configuration, library location.

Standard Networks

Standard vSwitch port groups and VLAN assignments.

Resource Metadata Collected

CloudVista collects detailed metadata for each vSphere resource type, surfaced in the inventory view and resource detail pages:

Resource TypeKey Metadata Fields
Virtual Machine Power state, vCPU count, memory (MB), guest OS, VMware Tools status, primary IP address, MAC addresses, host name, cluster, datastores, snapshot count, VM hardware version, disk size (GB), creation date
ESXi Host Connection state (connected/disconnected/notResponding), power state, CPU model, CPU MHz, core count, thread count, memory (MB), ESXi version, ESXi build number, cluster membership, datacenter, VM count
Compute Cluster HA enabled, DRS enabled, DRS mode (fully automated/partially automated/manual), total CPU MHz, total memory MB, host count, VM count, datacenter
Datastore Datastore type (VMFS/NFS/vSAN), capacity (GB), free space (GB), free percentage, accessible status, URL/path, connected host count, VM count
Distributed Virtual Switch DVS version, port group count, connected host count, uplink configuration

Health Monitoring for vSphere Resources

CloudVista runs automatic health checks against vSphere resources on every sync, surfacing issues in the same health dashboard as your cloud provider resources.

Virtual Machines

ESXi Hosts

Datastores

Health check results feed into the unified health dashboard alongside cloud provider health checks — giving you a single view of what's unhealthy across your entire infrastructure.

Setup: 3-Step vCenter Integration

  1. Create a read-only vCenter service account In vSphere Client: Administration → Users and Groups → Add a new local user (or use an existing domain account). Navigate to Global Permissions → Add. Assign the built-in Read Only role at the vCenter root with "Propagate to children" enabled. This gives CloudVista visibility into all datacenters, clusters, hosts, and VMs without any write access.
  2. Add the vCenter credential in CloudVista In CloudVista: Credentials → Add Credential → VMware vSphere. Enter your vCenter hostname or IP, the service account username and password, and the port (default 443). If your vCenter uses a self-signed certificate, uncheck "Verify SSL." Click "Test & Validate" to confirm connectivity before saving.
  3. Trigger your first sync Once the credential is saved, click "Sync Now." CloudVista will connect to vCenter, enumerate all datacenters, and collect inventory for all resource types. A typical environment with 100–500 VMs completes in under 2 minutes. Your vSphere resources will appear in the inventory view alongside your cloud resources immediately after sync completes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can CloudVista inventory VMware vSphere on-premises environments?

Yes. CloudVista connects to your vCenter server via a read-only service account and syncs your full vSphere inventory — VMs, ESXi hosts, clusters, datastores, distributed virtual switches — on the same schedule as your cloud providers. No agent installation required.

What vSphere resource types does CloudVista discover?

CloudVista discovers: Virtual Machines, ESXi Hosts, Compute Clusters, Datastores, Distributed Virtual Switches, Distributed Port Groups, Datacenters, Resource Pools, VM Templates, and Standard Networks — 10 resource types in total.

Does VMware vSphere inventory require a vCenter server?

Yes — CloudVista connects via the vCenter API. A vCenter server is required. Direct ESXi host connection without vCenter is not currently supported. vCenter 6.5 and later (including 7.x and 8.x) are supported.

Is VMware vSphere inventory available on the free plan?

VMware vSphere is available from the Team plan (£99/month) onwards. The free tier covers cloud providers (AWS, Azure, OCI, GCP) only.

How is VMware vSphere different from cloud providers in CloudVista?

VMware vSphere appears as a fifth platform in CloudVista alongside the cloud providers. Resources are displayed in the same inventory view, health checks run on the same schedule, and topology maps include on-premises resources. The main difference is that billing/cost data is estimated based on configurable on-premises cost rates rather than pulled from a provider billing API.

Does CloudVista support vSphere 8 (vSphere with Tanzu)?

Yes — CloudVista's vSphere integration is compatible with vCenter Server 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, and 8.0. vSphere with Tanzu workload domains are discovered as standard compute resources. Kubernetes-specific Tanzu resources (pods, namespaces) are on the roadmap.

Add vSphere to Your Cloud Inventory

Stop running two separate tools for cloud and on-premises. CloudVista unifies your VMware vSphere environment with AWS, Azure, OCI, and GCP in one dashboard — set up in under 5 minutes.

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Also see: Multi-Cloud Inventory  ·  Cloud Asset Inventory Guide  ·  Pricing