Complete List of Managed Object Types in VMware vSphere API
The following tables list all the managed object types in VI 3.5, vSphere 4 and 4.1. A short description is provided for each type explaining its major responsibilities.
Note that the managed object types are added in an incremental way. The types in older versions are still supported in newer versions. The complete types in a verion include ones in the correpsonding table plus all the ones in all older version tables.
Hope this post gives you a high level overview of functionalities of the vSphere APIs. Check out other blogs such as best practices (1-5, 6-10) on how to use them in general. And don’t forget my book which introduces them extensively with many read to use samples.
Table 1 Managed Object Types in VI 3.5
| Managed Object Types | Explanation |
| Alarm | Defines an alarm that is triggered and an action that occurs due to the triggered alarm when certain conditions are met on a specific ManagedEntity object. |
| AlarmManager | Represents a singleton object for managing alarms within a service instance. |
| AuthorizationManager | Provides operations to query and update roles and permissions. |
| ClusterComputeResource | Represents a cluster of HostSystem objects as a unified compute resource for virtual machines. |
| ComputeResource | Represents a set of physical compute resources for virtual machines. |
| ContainerView | Represents a view convenient for monitoring the contents of a single container. |
| CustomFieldsManager | Adds and removes custom fields to managed entities. |
| CustomizationSpecManager | Manages customization specifications stored on the VirtualCenter server. |
| Datacenter | Represents the interface to the common container object for hosts and virtual machines. Every host and virtual machine must be under a distinct datacenter in the inventory, and datacenters may not be nested under other datacenters. |
| Datastore | Represents a storage location for virtual machine files. A storage location can be a VMFS volume, a directory on Network Attached Storage, or a local file system path. |
| DiagnosticManager | Provides an interface to get low-level debugging logs or diagnostic bundles for a server. For VirtualCenter, this includes the log files for the server daemon. For an ESX Server host, this includes detailed log files for the VMkernel. |
| EnvironmentBrowser | Provides access to the environment that a ComputeResource presents for creating and configuring a virtual machine. |
| EventHistoryCollector | Retrieves historical data and updates when the server appends new events. |
| EventManager | Provides properties and methods for event management support. Event objects are used to record significant state changes of managed entities. |
| ExtensibleManagedObject | Represents the extensible managed object base interface, mainly for managing custom fields. |
| ExtensionManager | Provides registration and basic management services for all extensions. |
| FileManager (*) | Manages and manipulates files and folders on datastores. |
| Folder | Represents the container object type to manage entities in the inventory. |
| HistoryCollector | Retrieves historical data and receives updates when the server appends new data to a collection. |
| HostAutoStartManager | Invokes and sets up the auto-start/auto-stop order of virtual machines on a single host. |
| HostBootDeviceSystem | Queries and changes the current system boot device configuration. |
| HostCpuSchedulerSystem | Gathers and configures the host CPU scheduler policies that affect the performance of running virtual machines. |
| HostDatastoreBrowser | Provides access to the contents of one or more datastores. The items in a datastore are files that contain configuration, virtual disk, and other data associated with a virtual machine. |
| HostDatastoreSystem | Creates and manages datastores from the host. |
| HostDateTimeSystem | Provides service to query and manage date/time-related configuration on a host. |
| HostDiagnosticSystem | Configures the diagnostic mechanisms specific to the host. |
| HostFirewallSystem | Manages the firewall configuration of the host. |
| HostFirmwareSystem (*) | Provides access to the firmware of an embedded ESX host to back up/restore/reset the configuration. |
| HostHealthStatusSystem | Manages the health state of the host. |
| HostLocalAccountManager | Manages local accounts on a host. |
| HostMemorySystem | Configures and gathers the host memory management policies that affect the performance of running virtual machines. |
| HostNetworkSystem | Represents the networking system in a host. |
| HostPatchManager | Represents the path manager of a host that can scan and patch the host. |
| HostServiceSystem | Queries and manages the configuration of host services. |
| HostSnmpSystem | Queries and configures SNMP agent configuration on a host. |
| HostStorageSystem | Represents the storage subsystem in a host. It can be used to query and manage the storage attached to a host. |
| HostSystem | Represents a virtualization host platform. It can be used to operate and manage the host. |
| HostVMotionSystem | Queries and configures the VMotion configuration of a host. |
| InventoryView | Browses the inventory and tracks changes to open folders. |
| LicenseManager | Queries and manages license configuration. |
| ListView | Gets updates on an arbitrary set of objects. |
| ManagedEntity | Represents the abstract base type for all managed objects in the inventory tree. |
| ManagedObjectView | Represents the base type for view objects that expose a set of managed objects. |
| Network | Represents a network accessible by either hosts or virtual machines. |
| OptionManager | Manages key/value pair options. |
| PerformanceManager | Queries performance statistics. |
| PropertyCollector | Retrieves and monitors a set of properties from one or more managed objects. |
| PropertyFilter | Controls the properties that a collector retrieves and observes changes. |
| ResourcePool | Represents a set of physical resources: a single host, a subset of a host’s resources, or resources spanning multiple hosts. Resource pools can be subdivided by creating child resource pools. To run, a virtual machine must be associated as a child of a resource pool. |
| ScheduledTask | Schedules a task to run in the future. |
| ScheduledTaskManager | Creates and retrieves a ScheduleTask. |
| SearchIndex | Provides fast search service to obtain an item, typically a virtual machine or a host, in the inventory by UUID, IP address, and so on. |
| ServiceInstance | Represents the singleton server-side root object for the whole interactive session. From this object, you can obtain the inventory and various services. |
| SessionManager | Manages client sessions. |
| Task | Represents an operation that takes time and might be canceled. |
| TaskHistoryCollector | Retrieves historical data and updates related to tasks. |
| TaskManager | Retrieves and manages tasks. |
| UserDirectory | Discovers and verifies users in the underlying user directory. |
| View | Represents the base type for all the views that track changes of a set of managed objects. |
| ViewManager | Provides access to managed objects that make accessing objects and providing updates more convenient for specific use cases. |
| VirtualDiskManager(*) | Manages and manipulates virtual disks on datastores. |
| VirtualMachine | Represents the virtual machine. |
| VirtualMachineSnapshot | Represents a snapshot of a virtual machine. |
Note: * Experimental feature in VI SDK 2.5.
Table 2 New Managed Object Types in vSphere 4
| Managed Object Types | Explanation |
| ClusterProfile | Represents the profile for configuring the cluster. |
| ClusterProfileManager | Manages the cluster profiles. |
| DistributedVirtualPortgroup | Represents the distributed virtual portgroup objects. |
| DistributedVirtualSwitch | Represents the distributed virtual switch objects. |
| DistributedVirtualSwitchManager | Manages the virtual switches. |
| HostKernelModuleSystem* | Controls the configuration of kernel modules on the host. |
| HostPciPassthruSystem; | Manages the PciPassthru state of the host. |
| HostProfile | Configures the host. |
| HostProfileManager | Manages the host profiles. |
| HostVirtualNicManager | Manages the special v-NIC configuration of the host. |
| HttpNfcLease | Represents a lease on a VirtualMachine or a VirtualApp that can be used to import or export disks for the entity. |
| IpPoolManager | Manages and allocates IP addresses to vApps. |
| LicenseAssignmentManager | Manages licenses in a new licensing model. |
| LocalizationManager | Provides all the message catalogs for client-side localization of messages. |
| OvfManager | Provides services to parse and generate OVF descriptors. |
| Profile | Represents the base type for profiles for configuring the cluster and host. |
| ProfileManager | Represents the base type for managing profiles. |
| ProfileComplianceManager | Manages the compliance of entities against profiles. |
| ResourcePlanningManager | Estimates the database size required to store vCenter data. |
| VirtualApp | Represents a collection of virtual machines that consist of a software solution. |
| VirtualMachineCompatibilityChecker | Checks the compatibility of a virtual machine with a host. |
| VirtualMachineProvisioningChecker | Checks the feasibility of certain provisioning operations. |
| VmwareDistributedVirtualSwitch | Represents the VMware implementation of the virtual switch. |
Note: * HostKernelModuleSystem was first introduced in VI API 2.5u2.
Table 3 New Managed Object Types in vSphere 4.1
| Managed Object Types | Explanation |
| HostActiveDirectoryAuthentication | Indicates domain membership status and provides methods to add and remove a host to/from a domain. |
| HostAuthenticationManager | provides access to Active Directory configuration information for an ESX host. |
| HostAuthenticationStore | base class represents both local user and host Active Directory authentication for an ESX host. |
| HostDirectoryStore | base class for directory-based authentication stores. |
| HostLocalAuthentication | represents local authentication for user accounts on an ESX host. |
| HostPowerSystem | Managing host power management policies |
| StorageResourceManager | Provides services to configure and query resource usage for storage resources |
Author: Steve Jin is the author of VMware VI and vSphere SDK (Prentice Hall), creator of VMware vSphere Java API. For future articles, please subscribe to Email or RSS, and follow on Twitter.
