Comments on: Top 5 Myths about VMware vSphere API

By: Steve Jin

Steve Jin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:01:52 +0000

You may want to take a look at the caching framework which was discussed in a article in this blog.
Steve

By: Watsh Rajneesh

Watsh Rajneesh — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:16:51 +0000

Hi Steve,

Is there a way to collect the inventory with least hit to the vCenter server? My main concern here is using InventoryNavigator and then reconstructing the hierarchy makes too many round-trips to the vCenter server for every attribute in a Managed Object. Like HostSystem.getName() also results in a network roundtrip. Is there an API in vijava that could give me the full managed object with its properties saved locally rather than getting it each time from server? Or should i just use the PropertyCollector directly to get all the objects with their properties? Please advice.

Regards,
Watsh

By: Steve Jin

Steve Jin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:15:24 +0000

Hi Mark,

I am glad you like this post. You will get used to the vSphere API after a little while, especially if you use VI Java API.

The VI Java API has a helper class called InventoryNavigator which can get all the managed entities in the inventory in one call. The returned objects are all flattened out and you have to reconstruct the hierarchy by yourself.

The other alternative is to start from the rootFolder and dig down to its child nodes and sub child nodes by yourself. Be careful with the recursion because objects like folders could have other folders as child nodes for unlimited depth (in theory).

There is actually one more with the client REST API included in vi java 2.0. I have a blog on how to use it. Just do a search.

Good luck!

-Steve

By: Mark Erickson

Mark Erickson — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:10:25 +0000

Steve,

Very nice post. I’m new to the VMWare API and you’re absolutely correct in saying it’s a different mindset! I was wondering if you had any recommendations on how to use the API to retrieve a complete inventory of an ESX or vSphere server including the hierarchy? Basically, trying to create an XML file with nodes and their relations. Any thoughts would be wonderful.

-Mark

By: DoubleCloud » Demystifying 3 “View”s from VMware

DoubleCloud » Demystifying 3 “View”s from VMware — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:03:23 +0000

[...] I blogged the top 5 myths of vSphere API, William Lam suggested me to write a bit more on the views in his comments. If you haven’t [...]

By: Steve Jin

Steve Jin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:39:29 +0000

The “View” in vSphere API is a family of managed objects. In VI Perl, the view is more like what you just mentioned. As William suggested, I will write a blog on this topic soon.

-Steve

By: Dmitri Fedorov

Dmitri Fedorov — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:46:03 +0000

Isn’t it a view just a filter specification for all properties of a particular object/hierarchy and its descendants?

By: Steve Jin

Steve Jin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:54:08 +0000

Great idea. I will write about it soon. Stay tuned. Thanks!

-Steve

By: William Lam

William Lam — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:38:57 +0000

Steve,

Since “Views” are complicated, perhaps it might be a good topic for a blog post Maybe going over how one might make use of views and maybe some best practices around.

Thanks

–William

By: Steve Jin

Steve Jin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:09:52 +0000

Thanks William!

The vSphere APIs has indeed packed many functionalities, therefore too broad to master in short time. The “Views” is especially complicated, not only because it’s not documented, but also because it can easily be confused with View in VI Perl and VI .Net (the one behind the PowerCLI).

Please keep the comments coming!

-Steve