How VMware virtual machines are linked to their ESXi hosts

Title

Flexera One IT Asset Management uses VMware infrastructure inventory together with guest-device inventory to associate virtual machines with their ESXi hosts. Accurate host-to-guest relationships are essential for calculating license consumption in virtual environments where license positions depend on the physical resources of the host.

Required inventory
Two sets of information are required to establish the relationship:

VMware infrastructure inventory
A VMware discovery and inventory rule queries the vCenter API and collects details about the vCenter, ESXi hosts, and virtual machines visible to the account used by the rule. This inventory provides the host-to-guest topology.
Guest-device inventory
The guest virtual machine must also have an inventory-device record collected by the FlexNet Inventory Agent or another supported inventory source. The guest inventory alone does not normally provide the VMware host-to-guest relationship. For example, SCCM may supply guest operating system inventory, but VMware infrastructure inventory is still necessary to identify the ESXi host associated with the VM.

Information collected from VMware
VMware infrastructure inventory includes hardware classes that describe ESXi hosts and virtual machines.

ESXi host information
Each ESXi host is represented by the VMWARE_ESXComputerSystem class, which includes identifying details such as host name and UUID. The host may also include hardware serial-number data in the VMWARE_BIOS class.
Virtual machine information
Each virtual machine is represented by a VMWARE_VMComputerSystem instance. Engineering documentation confirms that each virtual machine on an ESX server is represented by this class. Important properties include:
- Name: The VMware managed-object identifier, such as vm-81.
- ElementName: The friendly virtual-machine name displayed in the VMware client.
- UUID: The UUID reported for the virtual machine by the VMware API.
- Parent and ResourcePool: References representing the VM’s position within the VMware infrastructure.

ElementName and UUID are separate properties. ElementName identifies the VM by its display name, while UUID provides the VMware identity used during matching.

How the guest is matched
The VMware infrastructure inventory and guest-device inventory may present the UUID in different formats. For example:

Guest inventory may report a serial number as:
VMware-42 2d 2e 4e f8 99 87 59-e0 a5 d5 78 f9 47 96 31
VMware infrastructure inventory may report the corresponding UUID as:
422d2e4e-f899-8759-e0a5-d578f9479631

Flexera normalizes the VMware-formatted serial number by removing the prefix and spaces, then compares the result with the UUID from VMware infrastructure inventory. If values do not match, Flexera cannot automatically associate the guest record with the corresponding VMware VM and ESXi host.

Import and reconciliation overview
The following process defines how VMware data is integrated and reconciled:

VMware infrastructure inventory is imported into the inventory database and represented through hardware-object, hardware-property, and hardware-value data.
The inventory reader processes relationship data and prepares imported virtual-machine records.
The guest identity reported by VMware is compared with imported computer records. For VMware guests, this includes comparing VMware UUID with the normalized VMware serial number from guest inventory.
When a matching guest computer is found, the virtual-machine record can be linked to that computer and its host.
During reconciliation, computer records from all inventory sources are merged according to computer-matching rules.
The resulting inventory-device records are stored in ComplianceComputer, while VMware relationship details are stored in VirtualMachine.
The VirtualMachine.HostComplianceComputerID field identifies the host associated with the VM. If this value is NULL, no host is currently linked.

Troubleshooting an unlinked virtual machine
If a virtual machine is not associated with its expected ESXi host, verify:

The VMware discovery and inventory rule completed successfully.
Current VMware infrastructure inventory exists for the vCenter and ESXi host.
Current guest inventory exists for the virtual machine.
The guest has a corresponding ComplianceComputer record.
A corresponding record exists in VirtualMachine.
The VM’s VMware-formatted serial number matches ImportedVirtualMachine.UUID after normalization.
The host exists as a compliance computer.
VirtualMachine.HostComplianceComputerID is populated.
The vCenter account can view the applicable ESXi host and virtual machine.

UUID mismatches are a known reason for unlinked VMs when the normalized UUID from the guest does not match the UUID in ImportedVirtualMachine.

Was this helpful?

Support Hub

Product

Flexera One

Solution Area

IT Asset Management

Version

26.x;25.x

Also Applies To

Flexera One;FlexNet Manager Suite

Deployment type

Cloud;On-premises

Visibility

Guest

URL Name

guest-and-host-relationships-in-vmware

Are you sure you want to cancel the case creation?

Case closed successfully

Action performed successfully

Upload Attachment

Maximum file size allowed is 3 MB.

File type not supported.

Supported file types:

Documents (.txt, .doc, .docx, .pdf), Images (.jpg, .png), Comma Separated Files (.csv) Speadsheets (.xlsx, .xls)

Are you sure you want to close this case

Get Hotline support

Products	Region	Phone Numbers
FlexNet Operations FlexNet Embedded FlexNet Publisher FlexNet Connect FlexNet Code Insight InstallAnywhere InstallShield	North America *	+1 630-332-2513 (toll) +1 877-279-2853 (toll-free in North America)
	Europe *	+44 1925 944367 (toll) +44 800 047 8642 (toll-free in Europe)
	Japan *	+81 3-4540-5335 (select option 2)
	Australia *	+61 3 9895 2177 +61 1800 560 603 (toll-free in Australia)
Usage Intelligence (formerly Revulytics) Compliance Intelligence	Please use the Case Portal to submit your support ticket or reach out to your Revenera contact.

Revenera Assistant

Related Articles

Please wait...

Case id: 00001065