Usage Manual

This page describes how the connector can be used and configured.

Prerequisites

The CMDBuild server must be able to reach the vCenter server over HTTPS. The connector uses the following endpoints of the vCenter:

• https://<host>/sdk/vimService (SOAP API, always used);
• https://<host>/api (vCenter 7.0 and later) or https://<host>/rest/com/vmware (vCenter 6.5 and 6.7), REST API used only to read tags.

A vCenter user is required, with username and password authentication. The user needs the following permissions, to be assigned on the root folder of the vCenter inventory and propagated to its children:

Read access to custom attribute definitions and values
Read access to datacenters, folders, clusters, hosts, datastores, networks and distributed switches
Read access to tags and tag categories (REST API, vCenter 6.5 and later)
Read access to virtual machines (configuration, guest information, runtime and storage summary)

The connector does not require any write permission on the vCenter.

Service version

The connector has been tested with vCenter Server versions from 6.5 to 7.0.

Tags are read through the REST API, which is available from vCenter 6.5 onwards. With older versions the connector works, but tags are not retrieved.

Connector dependencies

The connector requires the installation of the Connector utils plugin version 2.0.0 or higher and CMDBuild version 4.2.0 or higher.

Configuration

Plugin configuration

The standard connector plugin configuration can be found here.

The connector has no additional plugin configurations.

Instance configuration

Each vCenter to be read is configured with a card of the vCenter class.

Config	Default	Description	Notes
Code*		Name used to identify the vCenter instance	Used as key of the infrastructure the records belong to
Active*		Whether the instance is read during the synchronization
Host*		Address of the vCenter server	The protocol is optional; a trailing / is removed
Username*		Username to access the vCenter
Password*		Password to access the vCenter
Ignore certificate	false	Specifies whether to ignore the validation of the server certificate
Request timeout	60	Number of seconds to wait before considering a request in timeout	If empty or less than or equal to 0, the default is used
Skip datacenter calculation	false	If true, the datacenter of clusters, physical servers and virtual servers is not calculated	When skipped, the datacenter property of these records is left empty

Entities preview

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Tag is related to all the other records: its line points to the dashed container, which groups those records.

The diagram provides a high-level overview of the entities extracted by the connector and the relationships between them.

The diagram uses the following conventions:

• Orange containers represent CMDBuild superclasses. The entities contained within them belong to the corresponding superclass.

• Dashed orange containers group all the entities that are related to an entity outside the container. An arrow or a line pointing to the container represents a relationship with each of the entities inside it.

• Blue boxes represent record types extracted by the connector. Each box is labeled using the format {Source Object Name} ({_type}), combining the object name used by the source service with the internal record type produced by the connector.

• Blue boxes with a dashed border represent calculated entities. These records do not directly correspond to objects exposed by the source system but are generated during data processing to represent information that would otherwise be embedded within another record.

• Arrows represent one-to-many relationships between entities managed by the connector (1 : N). The arrow points to the "many" side of the relationship.

• Lines without arrows represent many-to-many relationships between entities managed by the connector (N : N).

Below is a list of all the entities retrieved by the connector.

• vCenter instance (infrastructure)

Inventory

• Datacenter (datacenter)
• Folder (folder)
• ComputeResource / ClusterComputeResource (cluster)
• HostSystem (physicalserver)
• VirtualMachine (virtualserver)

Storage

• Datastore (datastore)
• HostScsiDiskPartition (vmfsdisk)
• VirtualDevice (vdisk)

Network

• Network / DistributedVirtualPortgroup (network)
• DistributedVirtualSwitch (switch)
• PhysicalNic (pnetworkinterface)
• HostVirtualNic (hostvnetworkinterface)
• GuestNicInfo (vnetworkinterface)

Tags

• TagCategory (tagcategory)
• Tag (tag)

Calculated records

• IP (ip)
• Cluster datastore relation (cluster_datastore_rel)
• Host datastore relation (host_datastore_rel)
• Virtual machine datastore relation (vm_datastore_rel)
• Tag association (tag_association)

Additional Information

Synchronization to Application Classes

The standard connector imports and maintains data within the CMDBuild standard classes and relationships, providing a consistent representation of the data.

As a separate and optional customization activity, organizations may define additional synchronization processes to populate application-specific classes from the imported infrastructure data. Through custom mappings and enrichment rules, connector resources can be associated with organization-specific business objects, services, assets, or other application entities.

This approach supports customer-specific business models, enrichment processes, and classification rules while preserving the standard infrastructure representation provided by the connector.

Known Limitations

• The connector operates in read-only mode.
• Large environments may require increased execution time.
• No real-time synchronization: data is updated only during scheduled runs.
• The plugin is distributed under a Subscription license model. Its usage is tied to an active support and maintenance agreement, which is subject to expiration and must be renewed to remain valid.

Deployment Guidelines

Deployment of the connector includes the creation of standard CMDBuild classes and relationships corresponding to supported connector resource types. These structures provide the foundation for storing and organizing synchronized infrastructure information. The deployment process also includes configuration elements required for data visualization and the establishment of scheduled synchronization activities.

Following deployment, it is recommended to validate the configuration by executing an initial synchronization and reviewing the imported data.

Scheduling frequency should be selected according to the scale of the environment, expected rate of infrastructure change, and operational reporting requirements.