All MIBs › VMWARE-ESX-MIB
Category: Host and System Monitoring, VMware Virtualization
Description: Monitors VMware ESX host resources, virtual machine state, CPU, memory, and datastore usage.
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What Is VMWARE-ESX-MIB?
The VMWARE-ESX-MIB is VMware's proprietary MIB for monitoring an ESX/ESXi hypervisor host, exposing the VMkernel and overall host resource, virtual machine, CPU, memory, and datastore status through SNMP. It provides visibility into both the hardware-adjacent resource utilization of the physical host (CPU load, memory usage, storage/datastore capacity) and the software state of the virtualization layer (VMkernel load status, individual VM power/run state). This makes it directly useful for monitoring hardware/software health of a virtualization host—detecting an overloaded VMkernel, a VM that has crashed or is powered off unexpectedly, or a datastore approaching capacity. It is commonly used alongside the standard HOST-RESOURCES-MIB, which many ESX hosts also implement for generic OS-level resource data. It is typically deployed in enterprise and cloud data centers running VMware ESX/ESXi hosts under vSphere/vCenter management. Administrators evaluating vmware esx monitoring tools often start here, since this MIB exposes the same VMkernel and host resource data that dedicated ESX monitoring products poll over SNMP.
IPNetwork Monitor allows you to monitor SNMP objects defined in VMWARE-ESX-MIB. Use the built-in SNMP Monitoring Browser to explore available variables, view their current values and descriptions, and select the objects you want to monitor. You can then create SNMP monitors, configure thresholds, and receive alerts when monitored values change.
Supported Devices
- VMware ESX/ESXi host
Monitoring Examples
Polling vmkLoaded confirms the VMkernel is running and responsive, which if it goes false indicates a serious hypervisor-level failure. An administrator would monitor CPU and memory utilization objects under esxVMKernel/vmwESX to detect a host approaching resource exhaustion that could trigger VM performance degradation, and would check per-datastore usage objects to catch a datastore filling up and threatening to halt VM operations.
What Can Be Monitored
- VMkernel load/running status
- host CPU utilization
- host memory utilization
- virtual machine power state
- datastore capacity/usage
Imported Objects
From RFC1155-SMI
| OBJECT-TYPE |
From RFC1213-MIB
| DisplayString |
From VMWARE-ROOT-MIB
| vmwOID | OBJECT-IDENTITY |
| vmwProductSpecific | OBJECT-IDENTITY |
OIDs
RFC description
Monitors VMware ESX server kernel status and specific virtualization platform variables.
Start monitoring VMware ESX/ESXi host (VMkernel-load/host-resource/VM-power-state status) with a free 30-day trial of IPNetwork Monitor. Import MIBs, browse SNMP OIDs, create custom SNMP monitors, configure alerts, and monitor any SNMP-enabled network device from a single console.