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How to access VMWare vCenter Tags

We are looking to find the Tags attached to the VM servers from VMWare vCenter. We are running vCenter 5.5.

  • There are vm.annotation.name and vm.annotation.value fields.  Are these the values you are looking for?

  • I assume the fields you referring to are fields in the vCenter database? You are suggesting we query those fields, then import them into the SolarWinds database and associate them with the same server node?

    Though, I'm more looking for how to export the custom "Tags" in vCenter, and how I can import that data into SolarWinds automatically?

  • I asked the same question 2 years ago (VMAN 6.2). It's probably not implemented yet. Perhaps because accessing tags through any API is really a pain.

  • We ended up performing an automatic database export of VM Tags from vSphere vCenter 5.5 and 6.0, and then we are periodically importing that .csv into the Orion SolarWinds database after creating custom properties on the nodes to match up with each type of Tag that we have in vCenter. This way we are only updating Tags in one location and can use the Tags to alert on in SolarWinds as properties on the nodes.

  • Honestly need this to work. He have over 100 sites and over 2000 Vmware VMs that we use with tags. Will Vmware ever get this feature working?

  • Any updates regarding VMAN pulling vSphere tags? Is this still just a wish or has it been considered as an enhacement?

    Thank you

  • tobe1424  wrote:

    Any updates regarding VMAN pulling vSphere tags? Is this still just a wish or has it been considered as an enhacement?

    Thank you

    We'd like to work on this, it's just a matter of priorities. You can see the foundation block that we built here : Virtualization Manager 8.3 Release Notes when we added support for custom properties, but there are still other challenges that need to be addressed before we link it all together. In the meantime, any details on your use case and how you're using tags in your environment is greatly appreciated, so when we start actively working on the request we can make it the best possible solution for you.

  • It would be helpful to have the VMware tags in the solarwinds VMAN database.  Many people that use vmware tags use them to organize the VM's in ways that would also be used in Orion to organize nodes.

    For Example:  We have a vmware tag that indicates the "group_owner" of the VM.  I import this value into Orion as the custom node property as the "OnCall_Group", so when I send in alert tickets, the group is assigned from this value.  Not all of my nodes are VM's so I would still have to do the mapping to a node custom value myself, but it would be a lot easier doing it all inside Orion, than the custom written code to export from vmware and import into Orion.

  • brscott@arcbtech.com  wrote:

    It would be helpful to have the VMware tags in the solarwinds VMAN database.  Many people that use vmware tags use them to organize the VM's in ways that would also be used in Orion to organize nodes.

    For Example:  We have a vmware tag that indicates the "group_owner" of the VM.  I import this value into Orion as the custom node property as the "OnCall_Group", so when I send in alert tickets, the group is assigned from this value.  Not all of my nodes are VM's so I would still have to do the mapping to a node custom value myself, but it would be a lot easier doing it all inside Orion, than the custom written code to export from vmware and import into Orion.

    That's a perfect use case, thank you for describing sir