Vcenter Receiver

Available in: contrib Maintainers: @schmikei, @ishleenk17 Source: opentelemetry-collector-contrib

Supported Telemetry

Overview

Prerequisites

This receiver has been built to support ESXi and vCenter versions:

A “Read Only” user assigned to a vSphere with permissions to the vCenter server, cluster and all subsequent resources being monitored must be specified in order for the receiver to retrieve information about them.

Configuration

Parameter	Default	Type	Notes
endpoint		String	Endpoint to the vCenter Server or ESXi host that has the sdk path enabled. Required. The expected format is `<protocol>://<hostname>` i.e: `https://vcsa.hostname.localnet`
username		String	Required
password		String	Required
tls		TLSClientSetting	Not Required. Will use defaults for configtls.ClientConfig. By default insecure settings are rejected and certificate verification is on.
proxy_url		String	Not Required. URL of the proxy to use when connecting to the vCenter SDK endpoint i.e: `socks5://proxy.hostname.localnet:1080`. The `http`, `https`, `socks5` and `socks5h` schemes are supported. When unset, the standard `HTTP_PROXY`/`HTTPS_PROXY`/`NO_PROXY` environment variables apply. Unlike those, this setting is scoped to a single receiver instance, so several `vcenter/<name>` receivers in one collector can each use a different proxy. When it is set, those environment variables are ignored for this receiver and all SDK traffic is sent to the proxy.
collection_interval	2m	Duration	This receiver collects metrics on an interval. If the vCenter is fairly large, this value may need to be increased. Valid time units are `ns`, `us` (or `µs`), `ms`, `s`, `m`, `h`
initial_delay	1s	Duration	Defines how long this receiver waits before starting.
max_query_metrics	256	int	Maximum number of metric IDs per `QueryPerf` API call. Should match or be lower than your vCenter’s `vpxd.stats.maxQueryMetrics` setting (default 256). Set to `0` to disable batching. See VMware KB 301449.

Example Configuration

receivers:
  vcenter:
    endpoint: http://localhost:15672
    username: otelu
    password: ${env:VCENTER_PASSWORD}
    collection_interval: 5m
    initial_delay: 1s
    metrics: []

The full list of settings exposed for this receiver are documented in config.go with detailed sample configurations in testdata/config.yaml. TLS config is documented further under the opentelemetry collector’s configtls package.

Metrics

Details about the metrics produced by this receiver can be found in metadata.yaml with further documentation in documentation.md

Feature gates

BETA: receiver.vcenter.resourcePoolMemoryUsageAttribute This feature gate is enabled by default. It adds the memory_usage_type attribute to the vcenter.resource_pool.memory.usage metric. Disabling the gate retains the previous behavior: only guest memory usage is emitted, without the attribute.

Metrics

Metric Name	Description	Unit	Type	Attributes
✅ `vcenter.cluster.cpu.effective`	The effective CPU available to the cluster. This value excludes CPU from hosts in maintenance mode or are unresponsive.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.cluster.cpu.limit`	The amount of CPU available to the cluster.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.cluster.host.count`	The number of hosts in the cluster.	{hosts}	UpDownCounter	host_effective
✅ `vcenter.cluster.memory.effective`	The effective available memory of the cluster.	By	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.cluster.memory.limit`	The available memory of the cluster.	By	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.cluster.vm.count`	The number of virtual machines in the cluster.	{virtual_machines}	UpDownCounter	vm_count_power_state
✅ `vcenter.cluster.vm_template.count`	The number of virtual machine templates in the cluster.	{virtual_machine_templates}	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.cluster.vsan.congestions`	The congestions of IOs generated by all vSAN clients in the cluster.	{congestions/s}	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.cluster.vsan.latency.avg`	The overall cluster latency while accessing vSAN storage.	us	Gauge	vsan_latency_type
✅ `vcenter.cluster.vsan.operations`	The vSAN IOPs of a cluster.	{operations/s}	Gauge	vsan_operation_type
✅ `vcenter.cluster.vsan.throughput`	The vSAN throughput of a cluster.	By/s	Gauge	vsan_throughput_direction
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.cluster.count`	The number of clusters in the datacenter.	{clusters}	UpDownCounter	entity_status
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.cpu.limit`	The total amount of CPU available to the datacenter.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.datastore.count`	The number of datastores in the datacenter.	{datastores}	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.disk.space`	The amount of available and used disk space in the datacenter.	By	UpDownCounter	disk_state
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.host.count`	The number of hosts in the datacenter.	{hosts}	UpDownCounter	entity_status, host_power_state
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.memory.limit`	The total amount of memory available to the datacenter.	By	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.datacenter.vm.count`	The number of VM’s in the datacenter.	{virtual_machines}	UpDownCounter	entity_status, vm_count_power_state
✅ `vcenter.datastore.disk.usage`	The amount of space in the datastore.	By	UpDownCounter	disk_state
✅ `vcenter.datastore.disk.utilization`	The utilization of the datastore.	%	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.host.cpu.capacity`	Total CPU capacity of the host system.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.host.cpu.reserved`	The CPU of the host reserved for use by virtual machines.	MHz	UpDownCounter	cpu_reservation_type
✅ `vcenter.host.cpu.usage`	The amount of CPU used by the host.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.host.cpu.utilization`	The CPU utilization of the host system.	%	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.host.disk.latency.avg`	The latency of operations to the host system’s disk.	ms	Gauge	disk_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.disk.latency.max`	Highest latency value across all disks used by the host.	ms	Gauge	object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.disk.throughput`	Average number of kilobytes read from or written to the disk each second.	{KiBy/s}	UpDownCounter	disk_direction, object_name
❌ `vcenter.host.memory.active`	The amount of memory the host’s powered-on VMs are actively using.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
❌ `vcenter.host.memory.ballooned`	The amount of guest physical memory reclaimed from the host’s VMs via the balloon driver.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
❌ `vcenter.host.memory.capacity`	Total memory capacity of the host system.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
❌ `vcenter.host.memory.granted`	The amount of machine memory that is granted to the powered-on VMs on the host.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.host.memory.usage`	The amount of memory the host system is using.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.host.memory.utilization`	The percentage of the host system’s memory capacity that is being utilized.	%	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.host.network.packet.drop.rate`	The rate of packets dropped across each physical NIC (network interface controller) instance on the host.	{packets/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.network.packet.error.rate`	The rate of packet errors transmitted or received on the host network.	{errors/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.network.packet.rate`	The rate of packets transmitted or received across each physical NIC (network interface controller) instance on the host.	{packets/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.network.throughput`	The amount of data that was transmitted or received over the network by the host.	{KiBy/s}	UpDownCounter	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.network.usage`	The sum of the data transmitted and received for all the NIC instances of the host.	{KiBy/s}	UpDownCounter	object_name
✅ `vcenter.host.vsan.cache.hit_rate`	The host’s read IOs which could be satisfied by the local client cache.	%	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.host.vsan.congestions`	The congestions of IOs generated by all vSAN clients in the host.	{congestions/s}	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.host.vsan.latency.avg`	The host latency while accessing vSAN storage.	us	Gauge	vsan_latency_type
✅ `vcenter.host.vsan.operations`	The vSAN IOPs of a host.	{operations/s}	Gauge	vsan_operation_type
✅ `vcenter.host.vsan.throughput`	The vSAN throughput of a host.	By/s	Gauge	vsan_throughput_direction
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.cpu.shares`	The amount of shares of CPU in the resource pool.	{shares}	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.cpu.usage`	The usage of the CPU used by the resource pool.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.memory.ballooned`	The amount of memory in a resource pool that is ballooned due to virtualization.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.memory.granted`	The amount of memory that is granted to VMs in the resource pool from shared and non-shared host memory.	MiBy	UpDownCounter	memory_granted_type
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.memory.shares`	The amount of shares of memory in the resource pool.	{shares}	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.memory.swapped`	The amount of memory that is granted to VMs in the resource pool from the host’s swap space.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.resource_pool.memory.usage`	The usage of the memory by the resource pool.	MiBy	UpDownCounter	memory_usage_type
✅ `vcenter.vm.cpu.readiness`	Percentage of time that the virtual machine was ready, but could not get scheduled to run on the physical CPU.	%	Gauge
❌ `vcenter.vm.cpu.time`	CPU time spent in idle, ready or wait state.	%	Gauge	cpu_state, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.cpu.usage`	The amount of CPU used by the VM.	MHz	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.vm.cpu.utilization`	The CPU utilization of the VM.	%	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.vm.disk.latency.avg`	The latency of operations to the virtual machine’s disk.	ms	Gauge	disk_direction, disk_type, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.disk.latency.max`	The highest reported total latency (device and kernel times) over an interval of 20 seconds.	ms	Gauge	object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.disk.throughput`	Average number of kilobytes read from or written to the virtual disk each second.	{KiBy/s}	Gauge	disk_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.disk.usage`	The amount of storage space used by the virtual machine.	By	UpDownCounter	disk_state
✅ `vcenter.vm.disk.utilization`	The utilization of storage on the virtual machine.	%	Gauge
✅ `vcenter.vm.memory.ballooned`	The amount of memory that is ballooned due to virtualization.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
❌ `vcenter.vm.memory.granted`	The amount of memory that is granted to a VM.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.vm.memory.swapped`	The portion of memory that is granted to this VM from the host’s swap space.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.vm.memory.swapped_ssd`	The amount of memory swapped to fast disk device such as SSD.	KiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.vm.memory.usage`	The amount of memory that is used by the virtual machine.	MiBy	UpDownCounter
✅ `vcenter.vm.memory.utilization`	The memory utilization of the VM.	%	Gauge
❌ `vcenter.vm.network.broadcast.packet.rate`	The rate of broadcast packets transmitted or received by each vNIC (virtual network interface controller) on the virtual machine.	{packets/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
❌ `vcenter.vm.network.multicast.packet.rate`	The rate of multicast packets transmitted or received by each vNIC (virtual network interface controller) on the virtual machine.	{packets/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.network.packet.drop.rate`	The rate of transmitted or received packets dropped by each vNIC (virtual network interface controller) on the virtual machine.	{packets/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.network.packet.rate`	The rate of packets transmitted or received by each vNIC (virtual network interface controller) on the virtual machine.	{packets/s}	Gauge	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.network.throughput`	The amount of data that was transmitted or received over the network of the virtual machine.	By/s	UpDownCounter	throughput_direction, object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.network.usage`	The network utilization combined transmit and receive rates during an interval.	{KiBy/s}	UpDownCounter	object_name
✅ `vcenter.vm.vsan.latency.avg`	The virtual machine latency while accessing vSAN storage.	us	Gauge	vsan_latency_type
✅ `vcenter.vm.vsan.operations`	The vSAN IOPs of a virtual machine.	{operations/s}	Gauge	vsan_operation_type
✅ `vcenter.vm.vsan.throughput`	The vSAN throughput of a virtual machine.	By/s	Gauge	vsan_throughput_direction

Attributes

Attribute Name	Description	Type	Values
`cpu_reservation_type`	The type of CPU reservation for the host.	string	`total`, `used`
`cpu_state`	CPU time spent in idle, ready or idle state.	string	`idle`, `ready`, `wait`
`direction`	The direction of disk latency.	string	`read`, `write`
`disk_state`	The state of storage and whether it is already allocated or free.	string	`available`, `used`
`disk_type`	The type of storage device that is being recorded.	string	`virtual`, `physical`
`status`	The current status of the managed entity.	string	`red`, `yellow`, `green`, `gray`
`effective`	Whether the host is effective in the vCenter cluster.	bool
`power_state`	The current power state of the host.	string	`on`, `off`, `standby`, `unknown`
`type`	The type of memory granted.	string	`private`, `shared`
`type`	The type of memory usage.	string	`guest`, `host`, `overhead`
`object`	The object on the virtual machine or host that is being reported on.	string
`direction`	The direction of network throughput.	string	`transmitted`, `received`
`power_state`	The current power state of the virtual machine.	string	`on`, `off`, `suspended`, `unknown`
`type`	The type of vSAN latency.	string	`read`, `write`
`type`	The type of vSAN operation.	string	`read`, `write`, `unmap`
`direction`	The type of vSAN throughput.	string	`read`, `write`

Resource Attributes

Attribute Name	Description	Type	Enabled
`vcenter.cluster.name`	The name of the vCenter cluster.	string	✅
`vcenter.datacenter.name`	The name of the vCenter datacenter.	string	✅
`vcenter.datastore.name`	The name of the vCenter datastore.	string	✅
`vcenter.host.name`	The hostname of the vCenter ESXi host.	string	✅
`vcenter.resource_pool.inventory_path`	The inventory path of the resource pool.	string	✅
`vcenter.resource_pool.name`	The name of the resource pool.	string	✅
`vcenter.virtual_app.inventory_path`	The inventory path of the vApp.	string	✅
`vcenter.virtual_app.name`	The name of the vApp.	string	✅
`vcenter.vm.id`	The instance UUID of the virtual machine.	string	✅
`vcenter.vm.name`	The name of the virtual machine.	string	✅
`vcenter.vm_template.id`	The instance UUID of the virtual machine template.	string	✅
`vcenter.vm_template.name`	The name of the virtual machine template.	string	✅

Configuration

Example Configuration

vcenter:
  endpoint: http://vcsa.host.localnet
  username: otelu
  password: ${env:VCENTER_PASSWORD}
  proxy_url: socks5://proxy.host.localnet:1080
  collection_interval: 5m
  max_query_metrics: 128
  metrics:
    vcenter.host.cpu.utilization:
      enabled: false

Last generated: 2026-10-05

​Vcenter Receiver

​Supported Telemetry

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Configuration

​Example Configuration

​Metrics

​Feature gates

​Metrics

​Attributes

​Resource Attributes

​Configuration

​Example Configuration

Vcenter Receiver

Supported Telemetry

Overview

Prerequisites

Configuration

Example Configuration

Metrics

Feature gates

Metrics

Attributes

Resource Attributes

Configuration

Example Configuration