Virtual Infrastructure Performance Manager APIs

Virtual Infrastructure Performance Manager APIs

This managed object type provides the service interface for obtaining statistical data about various aspects of system performance, as generated and maintained by the system's performance providers.

A "performance provider" (PerfProviderSummary) is any managed object that generates utilization or other performance metrics. Performance providers include managed entities, such as hosts, virtual machines, compute resources, resource pools, datastores, and networks. Performance providers also include physical or virtual devices associated with these objects, such as virtual host-bus adapters and network-interface controllers (NICs)

Performance Counters
Each performance provider—the instrumented device or entity—has its own set of counters that provides metadata about its available metrics. Each counter has a unique key, referred to as the counterId. The actual performance metrics generated at runtime are identified by this counterId. Counters are organized by groups of finite system resources, such as memory, CPU, disk, and so on. The links in this list contain documentation for performance counters, by group. Each page contains a table that includes data extracted from instances of the PerfCounterInfo data object, including the counter name, its Label, Unit, StatsType, RollupType, and Level:

Other performance-counter groups, in addition to those listed here, exist on the system. However, only the counter groups listed are considered of possible interest to third-party developers.

Obtaining Metadata and Metrics
This interface provides these query operations:

Product and Version Specifics
Some differences between ESX and vCenter Server implementations of this interface include:

  • For ESX systems, this interface provides access to real-time data, and to real-time data that has been rolled up into "PastDay" statistics (if applicable for the specific counter).
  • For vCenter Server systems, this interface provides access to real-time and historical data. vCenter Server collects statistics on a regular basis from all ESX systems that it manages, and aggregates the results based on the level settings for the server.
  • Default sampling interval is product- and version-specific:
    • ESX 3.x (and subsequent) systems: 20 second interval
    • ESX 2.x systems: 60 second interval
  • VirtualCenter Server 2.5 (and subsequent vCenter Server) systems initially collect statistics data 10 minutes after system startup, and then hourly thereafter.

See the Programming Guide for more information about using PerformanceManager.

Operations
POST
Performance Manager Create Perf Interval
Adds a new historical interval.
GET
Performance Manager Get Description
The static description strings.
GET
Performance Manager Get Historical Interval
A list of *intervals* configured on the system.
GET
Performance Manager Get Perf Counter
A list of all supported performance counters in the system.
POST
Performance Manager Query Available Perf Metric
Retrieves all performance counters for the specified *managed object* generated during a specified period of time.
POST
Performance Manager Query Perf
Retrieves the performance metrics for the specified entity (or entities) based on the properties specified in the *PerfQuerySpec* data object.
POST
Performance Manager Query Perf Composite
Retrieves a *PerfCompositeMetric* data object that comprises statistics for the specified entity and its children entities.
POST
Performance Manager Query Perf Counter
Retrieves counter information for the specified list of counter IDs.
POST
Performance Manager Query Perf Counter By Level
Retrieves the set of counters that are available at a specified collection *PerfInterval.level*.
POST
Performance Manager Query Perf Provider Summary
Retrieves the *PerfProviderSummary* data object that defines the capabilities of the specified managed object with respect to statistics, such as whether it supports current or summary statistics.
POST
Performance Manager Remove Perf Interval
Removes an interval from the list.
POST
Performance Manager Reset Counter Level Mapping
Restores a set of performance counters to the default level of data collection.
POST
Performance Manager Update Counter Level Mapping
Changes the level of data collection for a set of performance counters.
POST
Performance Manager Update Perf Interval
Modifies VirtualCenter Server's built-in *historical intervals*, within certain limits.