VMware Communities : All Content - vSphere Web Services SDK

Monitoring HBA I/O -- Urgent

Sainathss — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:12:25 GMT

Hi All,
i have implemented VM solution for my company , and here is a brief details

a) ESX server

b) SAN

c) HBA controller

on ESX server i have hosted VM instances ( winodws OS ) , Disks for these VM are
placed on SAN and this ESX server is connected to a HBA. This HBA takes the I/O
to the SAN then to respective disk and vice versa.

Now everything works fine and i have to monitor this solution.

i understand that VM's uses the physical resources of ESX server such as memory,
network , processor etc... And i am planning to monitor

a) ESX I/O

b) HBA I /O

Are there any utilities from VMWare which i can use to monitor HBA I/O , from the earlier threads i see that there are no VMware API available to monitor hba I/O Also please do let me know available utilities which can monitor HBA I/O in the market Please suggest me as i am hitting iceberg .

storing Manage Object Reference (MOR) to sync with vSphere virtual center

Raju_K — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:21:16 GMT

The recommendation in the best practices doc is right.
You can store the MOR of an entity in your DB.
For objects like hosts, VMs, datastores etc...it essentially is the unique key that identifies the object.
And the MOR will not change during the lifetime of that object in the vCenter DB.
The only way it changes it if one removes and adds back the object. Then for all practical purposes it is a new object anyway.

What the programming guide is referring to, is the fact that this MOR that is the "ID" of the object is only within the namespace of that system.
So, the MOR of VM is unique within the VC.
That MOR may not exist or may not even be same object if you directly connect to the ESX host using the SDK.
The guide is just trying to clarify that the MOR of a VM in vCenter is not the same as if you connect to the ESX host directly.
That said, if you don't ever connect to the ESX host directly you need not care about that specific recommendation in the guide.

Hope this clarifies things.

How to Install VI SDK?

fitzie22 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:41:23 GMT

good afternoon,

I am curious if you were able to figure this out.. I am in teh exact same boat as you are and I have no idea where to put these files or how to get openview talking with my hosts. any help woulf be great. I have 3.5 hosts so teh path for sdk is not as you had so i have no idea wheree that folder is... thanks again.

vCenter Services...(vSphere)

kbr5678 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:21:13 GMT

Hi....

txs a lot..Actually iam asking about in VI Client - > Home - >Administration-> vCenter Service Status ..It shows some list of services ,message and status like vCenter Server,Vcenter Management Web Services,Storage Management service

How to get those services via VI SDK..

How to use the VmProvisioningChecker?

AngelaS — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:02:55 GMT

Manfred,

As mentioned in the previous post, ServiceContent.VmProvisioningChecker will only return in case of vSphere as this object has been newly added in vSphere and would not be available with VC 2.5. To use similar method which checks for host compatiblity for VMotion in VC 2.5, you can use QueryVMotionCompatibility_Task API which is the API of ServiceInstance managed object. However, this has been depricated in vSphere so you need to use QueryVMotionCompatibilityEx_Task API which is the method of VmProvisioningChecker managed object.

Hope this clarifies your query.

-Angela-

Get Cluster Name of VM with FindEntityViews

crigano — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:47:42 GMT

So I got this one figured out in C# - it seems to work good enough:

private string getClusterName(VimClient client, HostSystem host)
{

string clusterName = null;

//Add whatever ClusterComputeResource properties you want to query.
string] clusterProps = new string[ { "name" };

try
{
ManagedObjectReference objCluster = host.Parent;
ClusterComputeResource cluster = (ClusterComputeResource)client.GetView(objCluster, clusterProps);
clusterName = cluster.Name;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now + "::::ERROR::An error occured while attempting get the cluster name. MESSAGE: " + ex.Message);
}

return clusterName;

}

No AXIS any more -- introducing high performance web service engine, faster, smaller, more flexible

arunthe1 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:57:29 GMT

Steve,

Thanks for your VIJava APIs. It works great for me.

I am working for a company which try to integrate our software into VCenter as a plugin.

Eventhough open source is working great for us, Company want to proceed with "VMWare supported" sdk. (older SDK with AXIS)

I am little confused. VIJava has been listed under vmware communities but still claim "no support" from VMWare.

Can you exactly tell me "What is this supporting all about?". Will VMware support "SDK with AXIS" in future?

Can you point me to some samples/documents which help me in "SDK with AXIS" coding?

I am blocked due to this decision. Waiting for your response.

Thanks,

Arun

C - gSOAP : How to get Virtual Machine list using TraversalSpec objects and RetrieveProperties method ??

kamalp — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:16:59 GMT

I am kind of new to gSoap. Here is what i did to get this error:-

get vimService.wsdl and vim.wsdl from vmware's website. (note that vimservice.wsdl includes vim.wsdl)

wsdl2h -s vimService.wsdl

soapcopp2 vimService.h

make

If you there is a seperate procedure to build this sample application, pl let me know.

thanks

-kamal

Hello World - Getting started with the vSphere Web Services SDK (Java)

heyitspablo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:05:52 GMT

Datastore and Snapshot

stumpr — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:17:59 GMT

I believe these are both new in 4.0. However, FileLayout was in 2.5, so you can still get your calculation..it might be more work, however.

gsoap/c++ connection to VMware ESX Server 3.5.0

praveenps — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:37:31 GMT

Thanks stumpr for getting me started with this. As you pointed out there was some issue with the compilation. Now i can connect to esx i=using the code.

How to get the service instace?

AngelaS — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:11:01 GMT

To establish a secure conenction over SSL channel, you need to use the server side certificates. Please refer to http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/sdk40setupguide.pdf ,section Obtaing Server certificates, page 24, on how to obtain server side certiicates.

Angela

New counter "sys.cosDiskUsage.latest" added

AngelaS — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:31:30 GMT

Hi,

The sys.cosDiskUsage counter specifies % of the COS disk space that is used up by the HostSystem.

Hope this clarifies your question.

Resources for folks new to the vSphere Web Services SDK

heyitspablo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:49:21 GMT

Resources to help people get started with the vSphere Web Services SDK

Getting Started Guide: Developed by our SDK Developer Support Team, contains references and pointers to help you get started. Sample code in Java and C#

Hello World: Guide put together by the Ecosystem Engineering Sample Code in Java

Getting Started with the vSphere Web Services SDK

heyitspablo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:56:18 GMT

CreateNasDatastore() using the SDK

shaileshd — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:36:42 GMT

I am all set on this one. Just for info, the code below works:

hostDatastoreSystemMor = *((vim2__ManagedObjectReference*) respContent->propSet[idx]->val);
 cout << "hostDatastoreSystemMor.__item =" << hostDatastoreSystemMor.__item << endl;
 cout << "hostDatastoreSystemMor type =" << *hostDatastoreSystemMor.type << endl;
 vim2__HostNasVolumeSpec spec;
 spec.localPath = "CreatedUsingSDK";
 spec.remoteHost = "x.x.x.x";
 spec.remotePath= "/Datastore_SDK";
 spec.accessMode = "readWrite";


vim2__CreateNasDatastoreRequestType createDatastoreReq;
 _vim2__CreateNasDatastoreResponse   createdatastoreResponse;


 createDatastoreReq._USCOREthis = &hostDatastoreSystemMor;
 createDatastoreReq.spec        = &spec;
 int ret = _getVimService()->CreateNasDatastore(&createDatastoreReq, &createdatastoreResponse);

Create NAS datastore also talks about the same issue.

WaitForUpdates Hangs

manfred9999 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:47:40 GMT

Hello Angela

Thank you for the reply. I could not find any particular event connected with this problem. My application just stops responding and stops on the methode waitforupdates.

I suspect it is some invalid function in my code causing the problem. It is very difficult to track, because it occures randomly somtimes often and like right now I wait already for a couple of days but it never occured.

Regards

Manfred

How to find as to which redo log belongs to which base disk ?

lamw — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:41:59 GMT

You can figure out the mapping by looking at VirtualMachineFileLayoutEx property of a VM, this is only available as of vSphere 4.0.

If you have multiple disks and a snapshot is taken, you'll get back an array of disks which will contain a array of chains VirtualMachineFileLayoutExDiskUnit which specify the corresponding files which can be mapped back to VirtualMachineFileLayoutEx and you'll have your matching base disk and descriptor file.

I don't know if there is an easy way pre-vSphere, but you can always login to the Service Console and cat out the descriptor file to figure out which base disks it points back to OR download the descriptor file via the vSphere Client and look at its contents.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
Twitter: @lamw
vGhetto Script Repository
Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)
Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Trouble with find_entity_views

piuhapofuhpaosf — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:35:03 GMT

Beautiful! Thanks for the help.

Trouble with find_entity_views

lamw — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:42:59 GMT

Duplicated thread, please refer to: Trouble with find_entity_views

Prevent VM from being deleted

stumpr — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:08:54 GMT

I'd follow Iamw's recommendation and define roles and permissions. I'd also get a regular backup process implemented on the VMDKs (VCB or some 3rd party VMDK aware product).

I don't think there will be much else you can do outside of custom roles and permissions.

VI SDK and Linked mode questions

lamw — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:47:08 GMT

1) afaik, this is not exposed through the vSphere API's, hence it will not be available in the Java bindings
2) The 'services' that are listed is actually part of extensions that have been add in vSphere to monitor the various sub-componets, such as services running with vSphere. You'll need to access the extensionManager and you should be able to obtain the same information, take a look here: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/ReferenceGuide/vim.Extension.html#healthInfo
3) I don't think you can obtain this as the actual VCDB connection is not exposed

Tutorial: Get Your First VI SDK Application Running in 5 Minutes-- Beta 2 released

Muthuganesh — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:06:23 GMT

Steve,

The jaxb jars are not distributable ( CDDL license ) , you cannot bundle it for commercial products.

can you please make it compatible for jre 1.5 or suggest changes

this is important for us to decide.

-Ganesh

iscsi initiator from the guest os

shaileshd — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:57:07 GMT

thanks Bill, that answers my question. we create target storage which is external to the esx server and used by a vm. the process is manual and we have to manually enter the iqn of the vm initiator while provisioning storage used by the vm. we are automating the process and I wanted to find out if I could get the initiator iqn along with the other vm info.

Disk Latency Metric

lamw — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:24:47 GMT

Yes, take a look performanceManager and specifically the Disk I/O Counters where you'll be able to retrieve disk latency metrics

Can we use vim2.5 to connect to ESX3.0 and ESX 3.5?

janetdoyle — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:22:21 GMT

You've all been very helpful. The size of the binary increased by a lot, though!

VMware Coffee Talk Library - Reference Links

heyitspablo — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:02:34 GMT

Share on twitter!

VMware Coffee Talk Webinars - Fresh Content Served First Wednesday of the Month

Topic	Day	Registration Information	Presentation, WebinarLinks
What is new with vSphere Web Services SDK Deep Dive with Balaji Parimi\ Part 1	Wed May 6th, 2009	Completed	vSphereSDK_NewFeatures-5-6-09.pdf Webinar recording Link\
What is new with vSphere Web Services SDK Best Practices with Balaji Parimi\ Part 2	Friday May 8th, 2009	Completed	vSphereSDK_BestPractices.pdf Webinar recording Link\
PowerCLI - What is new in PowerCLI by Carter Shanklin	Wed June 3rd, 2009	Completed	PDF, Slides, Sample Code Link\ Webinar recording link\
Special Event - VMware Studio 2.0 - Matthew Ford\	Wed June 24th, 2009	Completed	Studio-CoffeeTalk-final.pdf Webinar recording link\
VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit - VDDK 1.1 - Sudarsan Piduri\	Wed July 1st, 2009	Completed	vddk-coffee-talk.pdf Webinar recording\
Extending PowerCLI to Enterprise Applications with Virtualization EcoShell - Scott Herold	Wed August 5th, 2009	Completed	Virtualization EcoShell.pdf Webinar recording Link\
vCloud API Overview - Ticho Tenev	Wed Sept 16th 2009	Completed	Webinar and PDF\
vSphere APIs for Performance Monitoring - Ravi S. and Balaji P.	Wed Oct 7th 2009	Completed	Webinar and PDF\
VMware vCenter ChargeBack APIs Overview by Hemanth Kumar Pannem	Wed November 4th 2009	Completed	Webinar and PDF\
VMware vSphere Client Plug Ins - Nimish Sheth VMware R&D	Wed December 2nd 2009	Information\	TBD

Add existing vmdk to VM using VI Perl toolkit

lamw — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:54:49 GMT

Take a look at this script: vmdkManagement.pl

SetTaskState questions

mseries — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:06:10 GMT

Because I want to provide a more descriptive message. If I use CancelTask, the message will always be: "task canceled by user" or something like that.

I want to be able to indicate the reason for the cancellation.

Method for top level PerformanceManager properties

AngelaS — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:59:15 GMT

You might also want to have a look at the VI SDK PropertyFilter - Getting Started Community Guide, which explains on how to use propertyfilter object and to use retrieveproperties method.

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9499

The operation is not allowed in the current state

johndemic — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:12:36 GMT

Hey Angela,

The concurrent tasks are either clone or power on/off operations. So you understand my use case, I'm attempting to throttle requests to virtual center when there are more then X of these operations going on a the same time. My strategy is to use the CollectorForTasks to determine if its ok to issue a clone or power on/off operation. For instance, if the CollectorForTasks says there are more then 10 tasks currently running then I will wait for a certain period of time and try again, hoping that virtual center isn't as busy.

This approach is obviously flawed if the concurrent activity impacts task collection as well...

Any insight would be very much appreciated,
-jd

SOAP request for performance information

AngelaS — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:19:51 GMT

The 500 Internal Server Error is a "server-side" error, meaning the problem is not with the SOAP request but instead is a problem with the server.

Try restarting your ESX server which is being managed through vCenter or it's network services.

I also wanted to check if you were able to see the performance stats through VI Client or not.

How to move a vm from one virtual switch to another from the SDK / command line?

RationalPi42 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:22:21 GMT

Yes, that's what I needed to know. Thank you.

Joshua Smith

Setup Network/Vlan during CloneVM in .net

DroppedAtBirth — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:33:30 GMT

To answer my own question.

 


nicSpec.operationSpecified = True

Creating multiple VMs from same base image

cpope — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:08:44 GMT

Hey lamw,

Thanks for the great information here. I have read through the document you referenced and had a couple questions I was hoping you could help me with. I ran across the following statement in the guide:

You can have up to eight virtual machines in a linked virtual machine group. The virtual machines in the group
cannot be part of a VMware HA cluster.

Is this information still true? Only 8 linked clones off of a base image seems pretty low. I know with View you can have many more than that.

Next, the same statement says that linked clone VMs cannot be part of an HA cluster. This also is not true for View...your View virtual machines can indeed be part of an HA/DRS cluster.

So, the question is...is this old information that has now been changed?

Are these just guidelines and not hard rules?

Any insight you can give would be appreciated.

Thanks!

HttpNfcLeaseDeviceUrl importKey Property Format

MikeMatczynski — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:54:16 GMT

I'm importing an OVF appliance into vCenter 4.0 using the VI API (vijava to be specific).

I'm calling the importVApp method to get a HttpNfcLease, which gives me a HttpNfcLeaseInfo, and a list of HttpNfcLeaseDeviceUrl objects.

Question is:

What determines the format of the HttpNfcLeaseDeviceUrl's importKey property? Based on the OVF file described below, the importKey is being set to the value "/ImportTest1/VirtualLsiLogicController0:4". I understand how "/TestExport1" is generated, but I am not sure how "/VirtualLsiLogicController0:4" is derived. I would have expected it to be named after the OVF's diskId property.

I'm free to modify the OVF, so if there's anything I need to set on the Harddisk elements, that'd be fine as well.

Thanks!

Mike

Excerpts from the OVF descriptor:

<References>
<ovf:File ovf:id="fileRef0" ovf:href="ImportTest.vmdk" ovf:size="447" />
<ovf:File ovf:id="fileRef1" ovf:href="ImportTest-flat.vmdk" ovf:size="1048576" />
</References>
<DiskSection>
<Info>List of the virtual disks used in the package</Info>
<ovf:Disk ovf:capacity="1048576" ovf:diskId="disk0" ovf:fileRef="fileRef0" ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized" />
</DiskSection>

...

<ovf:Item>
<rasd:ElementName>SCSI Controller 0</rasd:ElementName>
<rasd:InstanceID>10</rasd:InstanceID>
<rasd:ResourceSubType>LsiLogic</rasd:ResourceSubType>
<rasd:ResourceType>6</rasd:ResourceType>
</ovf:Item>
<ovf:Item>
<rasd:ElementName>Harddisk disk0</rasd:ElementName>
<rasd:HostResource>ovf:/disk/disk0</rasd:HostResource>
<rasd:InstanceID>11</rasd:InstanceID>
<rasd:ResourceSubType>10</rasd:ResourceSubType>
<rasd:ResourceType>17</rasd:ResourceType>
</ovf:Item>

ovfManager and obtaining reference to

paul_xtravirt — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:11:25 GMT

I get the process and your validation gives me hope

Where I am at is I have the spec created and I get the part 1 completed (summary information in to the inventory tree). Then part 2 (according to the API guide) kicks off, However, it times out. I cannot see how to extend the lease time and monitor until it is done. The 'state' comes back as a string array, but is all in XML, where the API guide says that the state should be returned as a single object. I know that I need to extend the lease, and have tried, but it never seems to be extended and so the task just times out.

Thoughts?

If you found this helpful, please consider awarding points

C# Using Single SignOn (SSPI) for Virtual Center 2.5.0.119598

CodeChief — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:18:25 GMT

I found the solution to the problem. All of your code so far was fine except for two things:-

1) In the SSPIHelper I found (on the PInvoke.NET site) somebody hard-coded "Kerberos" as the security package name. This must be changed to "Negotiate" to support both Kerberos and NTLM (i.e. when you have a workgroup notebook or are in a different domain). Maybe you had another already without that problem but here it is for the record; it's required else you can't support both methods. Where did you get SSPIHelper from / was that a MS sample originally?

2) When you are in a different domain or just a workgroup, it will always use your local COMPUTER\User name to logon, even if you stored alternate credentials into the Credential Manager (Vista or Windows 7). I found the solution to this...

I had valid remote credentials for the target machine stored in my Windows 7 Credential Manager, so the only remaining problem was to get it to use it. Looking at MSDN suggests it should work already. Just before giving up I tried setting the pszPrincipal used in the call to AcquireCredentialsHandle in SSPIHelper to the remote machine name, and it worked!!!

Bad documentation in MSDN threw me off track. I found this by chance. The docs and name of this parameter suggest it is only used as the "principal name" which most people will assume to be the user name only. So I guess this can be set to the name of any Windows entry in the Credential Manager, typically the netbios, IP hostname or FQDN.

Hope that helps.

Tony

Wait for vm clone task - vb.net

DroppedAtBirth — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:00:44 GMT

Ended up using Vim25Api.ServiceContent.taskManager and CreateCollectorForTasks and filterd it by the TaskID I was getting back from the CloneVM_Task MOR. Just have it checking the state of the task every 30 seconds, works but the task doesn't report the progress back, its always says the progress is 0. But I can at least watch it for error, running, queued, or complete states.

SEC_E_INVALID_HANDLE error in InitializeClient() while trying to do LoginBySSPI()

fixitchris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:24:24 GMT

Can you post the logs from the host as well as the machine's security event log you're running your code on?

Packets would be nice too.

how to monitor tasks using VI SDK that is how to know when a task has exactly completed

ultra01 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:29:16 GMT

Hi. The problem with that is vm.shutdownGuest() is of type void :

VMpowerOps.java:117: incompatible types
found : void
required: com.vmware.vim25.mo.Task
Task task = vm.shutdownGuest();

create screenshot for a vm

jbugwadia — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:11:28 GMT

Thanks for the pointer to the PERL script!

The script only allows execution against a ESX host. Is this SDK call not supported on vCenter? In the application I am developing, I have credentials to connect to vCenter but not the ESX host.

Jim

Looking for help on creating a C# class that can query for cpu utilization on a host

AngelaS — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:37:42 GMT

Hi,

In order to retrieve the the HostSystem managed object, you can use findByDns or findByIp API to get the HostSystem. Then you can drill down to the overallCpuUsage property ( HostSystem->summary->quickstats->overallcpuUsage) to get the overall cpu usage of the host.

You might want to refer to the sample SearchIndex.cs, shipped with the vSphere SDK package, which demonstrates how to use FindByDns and FindByIp APIs.

Hope this helps.

no performance data for host

workvmware — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:23:09 GMT

Thanks for your reply. Yes, it turns out that this is a vmware issue that has not been resolved yet. May be we will see some patch that could potentially solve the problem.

Thank you

Sushant

error (501) not implemented

dmitrif — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:29:36 GMT

No, I did not

How to move files from one folder to another folder in datastore

haroon09 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:28:16 GMT

oh, FIleManager is also defined in vim 2.5, do you guys know how can I accomplish this task using vim 2.0 API's?

Virtual CDROM not connected on VM Power On

lamw — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:46:29 GMT

Yep, mount it before starting.

I haven't had any issues when connecting to vCenter and mounting an ISO against a VM, the script was actually developed by doing that exactly and I've also verified that it works directly on the ESX(i) host.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)
Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

sdk installation guide

AngelaS — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:16:53 GMT

The error "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError" occurs when the Java runtime is unable to locate the class file. It seems that your Classpath environment variable is not properly set. You can crosscheck if the class file for SimpleAgent.java exists, if it does then you might need to double check on your Classpath environmet variable.

FindByUuid API doesn't work for template

AngelaS — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:33:28 GMT

FindByUuid API finds a virtual machine or host using the uuid. The API returns a managed entity and template is not a managed entity. A virtual machine template is a virtual machine image. So, FindByUuid API will not return the managed object reference for the template.

In order to find a template, you can follow the below steps:

1. Retrieve all the virtual machines

2.Check the property config.template for the VM. If it is set true, then it is a template.

3.You can also refer to the MOB by connecting to vCenter and drill down to the config.template property for the VM. If it is set true then the VM is a template.

Please note that the templates can only been seen in MOB if you connect to a vCenter and not directly to ESX server.

Hope this answers your query.

iSCSI lun to datastore mapping broken in vCenter 2.5?

lamw — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:46:56 GMT

You should be able to get the information you're looking for using: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk25pubs/ReferenceGuide/vim.host.InternetScsiHba.html ... as you may or may not know, the entire iSCSI stack has been re-written from the ground in vSphere and this not only gives you much better iSCSI performance but the amount of data available, majority of this is using the new PSA (pluggable storage arch.) ... it may not be 'broken' in vCenter 2.5 but the available data in vCenter 4.0 is much richer.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)
Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

vCloud API Session @ Technology Exchange Developer Day

navadavuluri — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:10:20 GMT

Download this Session: See attachment below.

Session abstract: VMware's vCloud API is a key element of VMware's vision for fostering a Cloud ecosystem of Service Providers, Enterprises, ISVs and VARs.The API enables provisioning and consumption of resources in the Cloud, management and publishing of VMs in the Cloud, as well as migration of VMs between internal and external Clouds. In this session, we will get into some details of the API and explore a few usage scenarios. The audience should walk away with an understanding of how the API fits within VMware's overall Cloud vision, what problem areas it addresses and the key concepts it exposes.

Level: Beginner

Presenter Bio

Tichomir Tenev

Tichomir is a senior staff engineer at VMware currently working on VMware's Cloud products. He has been with VMware since 2001 and has worked on a number of the well known VMware products today such as VMware workstation and VMware vCenter.

Prior to VMware, Tichomir worked for an energy trading startup and prior to that for a visualization company that spun off from Xerox PARC.

Tichomir holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT, as well as Bachelor Degrees in Computer Science and Applied Math from MIT.

vSphere Custom Tasks XXX com.package.label not found XXX

scott2 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:52:47 GMT

I solved the problem and just wanted to post what it was incase anyone else runs into this.

I was registering the ExtensionTaskTypeInfo one at a time as was need by my plug-in. I changed this to registering them all at once the first time the plug-in is loaded. Now all the labels show up correctly.

Looking for the logic or sample code (C#) to load an ISO file for a VM

lamw — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:24:39 GMT

Here's a vSphere SDK for Perl scrip that shows how you can implement this as the process was discussed in the previous thread, though it's not a C# example, it should give you an idea on where to start:

vmISOManagement.pl

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Server Hardware Health - Perl Sample Code

Seemankij — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:41:23 GMT

The reason you are getting the WS-addressing fault with the sample is that the particular portion in Hardware.pl for demo was written for HP DL 380 G5 (HP ESXi image). It is mentioned at the thread http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10665 also that the utility can be run on HP DL 380 G5 ESXi image only.

Ruby sample code and library for VI SDK

wbwest — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:27:34 GMT

yeah that would really help the ruby guys, i've been searching for samples but can't find one.

Which api is used to find the path to a VMs vmdk given only its name (or minimal information)

yvsvmware — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:33:49 GMT

vmConfigInfo.files.vmPathName will give the path of VMX file but not the VMDK disk path.

For getting VMDK disk paths,

1. Get all virtual devices for a given VM...

2. Filter out the Virtual devices that are Virtual disks.

3. virtualdevice.backing.filename is the required VMDK disk path.

vmConfigInfo.hardware.device will give all the devices.

Filter them wrt properties VirtualDeviceFileBackingInfo or __VirtualDiskFlatVer2BackingInfo etc

virtualdevice.backing.filename will give the VMDK disk path

ManagedObjectReference vmMor = getDecendentMoRef(*null*,"VirtualMachine",vmname);

example: VirtualDevice vDevs = (VirtualDevice[])getDynamicProperty(vmMor, "config.hardware.device");

vDevs.getBacking().getClass().getCanonicalName().indexOf

("VirtualDiskFlatVer1BackingInfo")

{

//if (vdevice.backing != null && vdevice.backing is VirtualDeviceFileBackingInfo)

if ((vDevs.getBacking() != *null*)

&& (

(vDevs.getBacking().getClass().getCanonicalName().indexOf

("VirtualDiskFlatVer1BackingInfo") != -1) ||

(vDevs.getBacking().getClass().getCanonicalName().indexOf

("VirtualDiskFlatVer2BackingInfo")!= -1) ||

(vDevs.getBacking().getClass().getCanonicalName().indexOf

("VirtualDiskSparseVer1BackingInfo")!= -1) ||

(vDevs.getBacking().getClass().getCanonicalName().indexOf

("VirtualDiskSparseVer2BackingInfo")!= -1)

))

{

VirtualDeviceFileBackingInfo vBackInfo = (VirtualDeviceFileBackingInfo)vDevs.getBacking();

vmDiskURLs.add(vBackInfo.getFileName());

}

Building the samples in sdk

AngelaS — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:50:31 GMT

To run the CreateVM script, please refer the below command line:

CreateVM.cs https://%3cserver/ IP address>/sdk <username> <password> <datacenter name> <IP address of the host> <name of the VM>

The description for the same is also provided in the script as well.

For power on/off operations on a VM, please refer to PowerOnVM_Task/PowerOffVM_Task methods in the vSphere API reference guide.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/ReferenceGuide/index.html

For furture posts, please post a new thread for a different query/issue and avoid posting questions for different queries in a single forum thread. This would be helpful for the other users in the forums to locate a specfic issue by refering to the subject line of the posted forum threads.

CopyVirtualDisk_Task issue (VimSdk BUG)

heyitspablo — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:44:47 GMT

Thanks for the heads up - Im going to have our SDK Dev team escalate issue.... might be best if we file a formal TAP SDK SR for this.. Ill send you more info.

Regards,
Pablo

Creating an event for rescan operations

Aristizabal — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:32:38 GMT

Thanks William, you put me on the right track.

The following thread is also helpful:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/117162

support of moref in http request url to get the VM files

yvsvmware — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:59:07 GMT

As I mentioned above, It's not just VMname, but vmx , DCpath, DataStore are needed. This is analogous to VDDK, VDDK earlier recognizes a VM with VMX, complete DC Path, DataStore name etc but from VDDK RC it came with moref id.

Problem with AnswerVM_Task : unexpected arguments

nik-O — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:48:27 GMT

Hi,

the right syntax is:

*$_->AnswerVM(questionId => $_->runtime->question->id, answerChoice => $_->runtime->question->choice->defaultIndex);*

bye

Console of vSphere Client in C#

k.malek — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:06:27 GMT

Hmm... where should I start...

I was able to embed webBrowser component in windows form and set it up so it will display a page with the mksplugin etc.
So it is possible to implement that mks plugin in c# windows forms application...but

While this approach works, and I was able to connect to the console of my test vm, it is basically useless in this form.

It requires a html page to be accessible to the application. In other words I have to have html page saved somewhere on the system or network that my app can access.
Well, if I have 20 VMs that i want to connect to, I have to have 20 html pages, quite not what i expected.

I wouldn't mind generating pages from within the application, but I don't like the idea of saving them to the disk and then displaying them.
The reason for that is that this file contains all information about VM, datastore, and user credentials.

Anyway, if anyone has any other idea, please share it.

Java SDK samples will not build

AngelaS — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:41:58 GMT

You may want to cross check on whether the environment variables are pointing to the right location and correct filenames, especially the classpath.

CLASSPATH

Complete paths to specific JAR files and other libraries required by Java
and Axis tools. Add these specific JAR files to the classpath (assumes
you have setup AXISHOME, JAVAHOME, and SDKHOME):
%AXISHOME%\lib\axis.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\axis-ant.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\commons-discovery-0.2.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\commons-logging-1.0.4.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\jaxrpc.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\log4j-1.2.8.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\saaj.jar
%AXISHOME%\lib\wsdl4j-1.5.1.jar
%JAVAHOME%\lib\tools.jar
%SDKHOME%\samples_2_0\Axis\java\vim.jar
%SDKHOME%\samples_2_0\Axis\java\lib\activation.jar
%SDKHOME%\samples_2_0\Axis\java\lib\mailapi.jar

AXISHOME :

Complete path to the Apache Axis installation top‐level directory. For
example:
C:\apache\axis1.4

SDKHOME

Path the top‐level directory of the unpacked SDK download. For
example:
C:\devprojects\visdk201\SDK

JAVAHOME

Paths to the binary root directories for both the Java JDK and the Java
runtime (JRE). For example:
C:\jdk1.5_0_08\bin
C\jre1.5_0_08\bin

PATH

Add the path to the Java and the Axis binary client tools to the system
path. Assuming you setup the AXISHOME and JAVAHOME variables,
you should add:
%AXISHOME%\bin
%JAVAHOME%\bin

vmregister.pl doesn't work

arjunvenkatraman — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:00:01 GMT

I'm having trouble with this script as well. I'm running the following command:

./vmregister.pl --url https://a.b.c.d/sdk/webService --username Administrator --password ******* --host <somehost> --vmxpath "dsnameVM/VM.vmx" --pool Resources

and i keep getting the error:

"Filtering is only supported for Simple Types
at ./vmregister.pl line 71"

Line 71 in the file refers to something about filtering folders. I have tried this with the "--filter" option turned on as will as without it.

Suggestions?

Arjun

how to know if session cookie expired for retrieveProperties()

mm6 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:55:57 GMT

retrieveProperties() seems to return null if nothing matches or if the session cookie you send has expired. Other calls such as findByInventoryPath() return a SOAP fault if the session has expired.

How do I tell if the cookie is bad or the property filter spec returned no matches? I'm using this for getting tasks which often there are none of. I'd prefer not to do another call each time to check the session if there is another way.

VA deployment degradation on vSphere4

Lexus16 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:03:10 GMT

Hello,

We have high performance degradation when our Appliance is deployed to ESX server via Virtual Center. When the appliance is deployed to ESX directly we don’t have such problem.
We are using the following script:

curl -u username:NfelMC2Ub -k -T upload https://10.250.148.27/folder/LR1_11133_ESXAppliance/upload.dat?dcPath=Center&dsName=Storage1

where 10.250.148.27 is the address of Virtual Center. If we specify the address of ESX instead of Virtual Center, everything works fast.
BTW such problem appeared on vSphere 4, on previous versions everything was fine.
Could you please answer:

What could be the reason of this degradation?
How can we tune up the speed of deployment via Virtual Center?
If we have correct credentials on Virtual Center, is it possible to deploy directly to the ESX registered on it?

Thank you

VI SDK 2.5 Events and Tasks

lamw — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:25:57 GMT

If this is not documented in the What's new section, then I don't believe it's documented. Though you can look at tasks and events and see which ones have the Since vSphere API 4.0 listed next to it. It's not a pretty method but you can get the information but clicking on the tasks and events and going through them ...

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

VMware vSphere - SDK Performance Monitoring - Resource

heyitspablo — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:15:23 GMT

vSphere API and Performance Monitoring Resource

Pointers to Performance Monitoring content to help software developers build performance monitoring applications. Please add any other pointers you think our community should be aware of.

Latest Updates:

-> Using vscsiStats for Storage Performance Analysis by Scott D. (using ESXi)
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10095

-> vSphere APIs for Performance Monitoring Webinar
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/233040

-> Performance TroubleShooting for VMware vSphere 4
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10352

->New vSphere Performance Monitoring Video and Sample Code - from Tech Exchange Orlando
See Application Performance Monitoring through the VI APIs (takes a few minutes to load - 60 mins)
http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/developer/webinars/performance.html

vSphere API Reference Guide 4.0:

-> http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/ReferenceGuide/cpu_counters.html

-> http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/ReferenceGuide/vim.PerformanceManager.html

-> Performance Monitoring and Analysis

VI SDK Performance Monitoring Video
60 Minutes goes into details of best practices when gathering VI Performance information.
VI-Performance-Monitoring.pdf

technote_PerformanceCounters-11-03-08.pdf - Improved Performance Counter Definition

VI 3.5 Memory Statistic Definitions.pdf - Details on Memory Statistics for VI 3.5

VMware Performance Community - Dedicated to all things Peformance

Best Practices for Perfomance - Community Guide

create linked-clones (delta-disks) via vmware API's?

lamw — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:25:12 GMT

Yes, here is a Perl script that utilizes the vSphere API to create Linked Clones: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/vGhettoLinkedClone.html and here is an official WP from VMware with additional information on creating Linked Clones using vSphere API: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/linked_vms_note.pdf

Note, Lab Manager Linked Clones are different from how VMware View Linked Clones are generated, though neither utilizes this new API.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

List current tasks and its progress (percent) for a selected VM

vAjit — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:42:40 GMT

Wow, this is exaclty what I have been trying to make myself, unfortunately The above script is not working for me for some reason, may be because I am running the latest version of vmware Perl kit, any pointer?

I am looking for a script which can take vm name or managed object reference ID for the vm and return the progess.

c# code needed to list plugins in extension manager!

AngelaS — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:46:49 GMT

Hi,

You need to set the type of the managed object whose properties you wanted to retrieve as the "type" property of "PropertySpec". The property of the managed object to be retrieved is passed in the pathset. So, set the type property of PropertySepc to the type of the managed object "ExtensionManager".

Please refer to the below code snippet:

ManagedObjectReference extMOREF = _sic.extensionManager;

PropertySpec pSpec = new PropertySpec();

pSpec.type = extMOREF.type ;

pSpec.all = true;

pSpec.pathSet = new string[] { "extensionList" };

ObjectSpec oSpec = new ObjectSpec();

oSpec.obj = extMOREF;

Try with the above changes and let us know if you were able to resolve the issue.

"certificate is required" or terrible exception

DannyUtro — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:31:15 GMT

Thanks for yours answers.

I do not want to use certitificate to login, password or username, i want use a "ticket" to connect CIMOM (wsman) repository via C#, like HardwareStatus plugin for VMware VSphere Client. I don't understand why this exception raised up every time when i try use the samples CIMInfo, when i use a sample in Java - output were like this "Couldnt find a path to valid certificate"

Anybody can help me?

P.S: I can't use a http, i can only use https protocol.

LVM.EnableResignature for ESX 4.0

Ashwin89 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:33:06 GMT

Awesome.

Thanks for the quick help.

ExtendVirtualDisk returns with FileFault

tobiasvdk — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:43:38 GMT

Hi,

the script works as expected. I found the problem in the log file /var/log/vmware/hostd-4.log :

2009-10-06 17:11:29.860 'BaseLibs' 22723504 info DISKLIB-LIB : capacity needs to be bigger than : 28000000 (28000000)

So trying to expand the 12G disk to 14G failed but expanding to 15GB was succesful.

Bye Tobias

SSL Certificate

AngelaS — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:54:13 GMT

You can refer to the section "Obtaining Server Certificates" under Appendix A on page 24 in vSphere Developer's Setup guide for information on obtaining the certificates.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/sdk40setupguide.pdf

Error with disk when creating a VM

daniellynn — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:56:27 GMT

Issue solved - the problem was actually with the SCSI controller. The sharing property was set to physical, instead of nosharing

Introducing the VI 2.5 Client Plugin - SVMotion

mw4tkn — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:52:58 GMT

I want to use this tool to migrate my VC to another datastore, which itself is a VC. Does anyone see any problems with this?

Example on usage of TaskHistoryCollector using ZSI and Python

rpapiset — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:45:17 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to use pyton with ZSI to retreive task using taskhistorycollector. Can some one post if you have any example using Python and ZSI with filter.

Appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Ravi Kumar P.

VMware Coffee Talk - October 7th Wed 9:00 AM PST - vSphere APIs for Performance Monitoring

heyitspablo — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:49:32 GMT

Session Title: vSphere APIs for Perfomance Monitoring
Session Abstract:
Understand the features available to developers via vSphere Web Services APIs to
collect performance statistics and discuss best practices in collecting performance
data when using these APIs. This presentation is a must-attend for any developer
that retrieves performance information from the vSphere platform in any large environment.
While the content is advanced, developers new to the platform will find it useful.
Web Ex Link
MP3 Link
Level: Advanced
Speakers:
Ravi Soundararajan
Staff Engineer Performance Team
Balaji Parimi
Ecosytem Engineering
Message was edited by: heyitspablo - Added Web Ex Link

Deployment of Virtual Machines over SDK 2.5 doesn't work after upgrade to ESX 4

michael.ronge — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:27:31 GMT

Now everything works again.

Even though the LSI SCSI controller doesn't show up a controllerKey when being read, it needs one being set while writing.

The SIO Controller and the IDE Controller must be created AFTER the SCSI controller and the disk, or they won't be created.

Creating multiple clones at a time

stumpr — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:14:41 GMT

If you look at the SDK, you'll see that hostName is actually another object. You'll have to nest a CustomizationFixedName object into your SOAP body.

CustomFieldsManager object not working

LarsOeschey — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:35:26 GMT

thanks, very helpful

Failed : fault.RestrictedVersion.summary

saff — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:12:29 GMT

ahh yes ofcourse, I already knew from earlier in this thread that I needed to buy something, and believe me, I dont mind that at all, I just need to know what to buy , since there are a sea full of different versions. I basicly want to find exactly what I have today (in the esxi 4.0 free) +snmp, that will due good for me and my small company. The free version was just installed in order to test the product at all, to see if it fits the needs we have.

Thanks for all your time and help

//Bobo

Before I venture into the unknown...

bobg2007 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:58:06 GMT

Hi LawM,

thank you very much for your both fast and informative reply.

I will take the time to read through the information you have provided.

Many thanks once again.

listing of folders and its respective vms

cpope — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:11:48 GMT

Sorry for the delay everyone in posting this. I have recieved several requests for the code so I have posted the full example VITree project to codecentral. You can find it here:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10891

I'd be interested in hearing how others use this code in their projects!

Curtis

Gathering details of all DataStores

ChaitanyaS — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:00:02 GMT

Thank you very much. It's helpful. I'll look into it.

vSphere/vCenter client and the web services

ChaitanyaS — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:14:15 GMT

Thank you very much for references.

How to Fetch Events with some offset

heyitspablo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:51:42 GMT

Ravi and Balaji just did a pretty exciting webinar on pulling perfomance data using the vSpherer APIs,, might be good to take a peek some good info and best practice tips.. http://communities.vmware.com/thread/233040

We also have some pretty good set of Sample Code available on topic..

-P

How to edit VM Image settings using VI SDK 4

newsharon86 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:17:43 GMT

Thanks A lot

It was very kind of you

GOOD DAY

API to turn on Fault Tolerance

Bramha — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:48:04 GMT

thanks!! this is what I needed.

ReconfigVM not working for Multiple Disks

Bramha — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:25:04 GMT

Was also able to solve this problem by using negative unique disk keys -1,-2.....

powerpath version from the vsphere ws sdk

heyitspablo — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:51:14 GMT

Ill pass this on to our PM for WS SDK. Can you PM so we can connect for more details ?

Thanks

Pablo

vSphere SDKs / APIs Overview

heyitspablo — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:15:50 GMT

creating RDM

ii00907 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:48:54 GMT

Hi,

very thanks for script but i have a problem.

When i run the command rdmCreate.pl --url http://Virtual_Center/sdk/vimService

i have this error ;

SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Invalid datastore path 'Adabas.vmdk'.
Fault detail: InvalidDatastorePathFalut :
SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Invalid datastore path 'Adabas.vmdk'.

Can you help?

findByDatastorePath call never returns

AngelaS — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:26:01 GMT

Are you trying to connect to an ESX server or a vCenter and which version of server you are using?

When we tried to call the findByDatastorePath API through a credential, connecting to an ESX 3.5 & 4.0 server, which doesnt have access to datastore, an error "Permission to perform this operation was denied" occurred.

Kindly also share what all permissions/roles have been assigned to the credential which you are using.

vi sdk 2.5 and windows communication foundation

lamw — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:26:19 GMT

If the language you're using can communicate using industry standard SOAP/WSDL which how the VMware SDK is exposed (web services), then yes you can create an application/script/program to communicate with the VI SDK 2.0/2.5 and vSphere SDK 4.0

I'm not familiar with WCF, but if the above holds true, then it's a yes.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

WCF client?

lamw — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:24:34 GMT

This looks like a duplicated question/thread, please refer to this thread: vi sdk 2.5 and windows communication foundation

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

how I can know the version of a host server or a virtual center (ESX server 4.0 or vCenter server 4.0 or lower version) through API

lamw — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:21:03 GMT

All this information regarding if it's a vCenter, ESX(i), version, build, etc. is all available via aboutInfo under the service content when connecting to a system. You can add checks into your script/program to perform certain operations based on version or the type of system you're connecting to.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Developing a Mac OS X and/ or iPhone native application using xcode

cookieme — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:17:21 GMT

Hi

I'm not a programmer, but I'm curious about the procedure for developing a native Mac OS X and/ or iPhone native application using Apple's developer tools (xcode). Is this possible and what VMware development tools are required as I see that there is both a web services sdk and a perl sdk?

If anyone has any experience of developing for the Mac/ iPhone platforms with regards to VMware vSphere I would be very interested in any pointers.

Thanks

P.S. Please move this post if I've posted in the wrong developer community.

Introduction to the vSphere SDK using Java and C# - Posting by David D (Lab from FL Tech Ex)

heyitspablo — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:46:20 GMT

We wanted to let you know we ran a very successful vSphere SDK lab at [Partner Exchange / Tech Exchange a few weeks ago in Orlando. For those of you who missed the event, I'm posting the manuals and code files. Going through the lab is a great way to get started with the API and includes handy sample code for modification or inclusion in your own programs.

{youtube}http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paGqr9SWl-4{youtube}

The lab covers both the Java and C# versions of the VI SDK and uses the vSphere Web Services SDK 4.0 (formerly VI SDK 4.0). Though the lab doesn't cover any vSphere-specific features, I haven't tested it with VI SDK 2.5 and it will probably require some minor modification. For scripters that would prefer an introduction to the vSphere Perl SDK (formerly the VI Perl Toolkit) or the vSphere PowerCLI (formerly VI Toolkit for Windows), I posted a similar lab for those in an earlier blog post.

Exercises cover all the basics for using the SDK:
* Understanding managed objects and data objects
* Connecting to the VI API webservice
* getting the properties of managed objects using the PropertyCollector
* Using the SearchIndex
* Finding objects using TraversalSpecs
* Finding objects based on arbitrary criteria
* Collecting properties of multiple objects at the same time
* Understanding performance differences in some basic property collection strategies
* Monitoring properties for changes
* Monitoring tasks for completion
* Gathering performance statistics

There's obviously a lot more to do in the SDK, but once you've mastered those basic skills, most of the rest of the SDK is just an extension of what you already know. The exercises on collecting multiple objects properties at the same time and understanding performance differences due to property collector strategies cover some common problems I see with the management ecosystem partners I handle and are a great review for anyone trying to make sure their SDK code scales well.

A few things to note: I didn't update the doc with the new names of the various API components... I wrote the lab while those names were still under development. Also, I want to thank the other folks who helped put this lab together: Balaji Parimi (who wrote the Java code), Rajesh Kamal (who wrote the C# code), Alton Yu, John Kennedy, Paul Vasquez, and Steve Jin.

While most of the code handles errors gracefully and follows best practices, I’d like to point out that the code here is designed to teach concepts, not to be “enterprise ready”.