Introduction

What is VCF Servers Insight

VCF Servers Insight is a VMware Aria Operations Management Pack that monitors Dell and HPE physical server infrastructure. It connects to Dell iDRAC, Dell OpenManage Enterprise (OME), and HPE iLO via Redfish and OME APIs and collects hardware inventory, health, CPU/memory utilization, temperature, power, storage, network, and BIOS metrics, presenting them as first-class objects in VMware Aria Operations.

The Management Pack bridges the gap between physical server hardware and the rest of the VMware Cloud Foundation stack, allowing administrators to correlate server health with vSphere host health, capacity, and overall datacenter posture from a single monitoring console.

What it monitors

The Management Pack monitors three resource kinds across all management interfaces:

• Physical Server — CPU/memory utilization, temperature, power, system uptime, manufacturer/model, BIOS, CPU, memory (DIMM), storage controllers, physical disks, network adapters, fans, power supplies
• Chassis — temperature, power consumption, fans, power supplies, model and health
• Network Switch — port count, active ports, per-port status/speed/role/MTU, model, firmware

Monitoring paths

• Dell iDRAC — direct Redfish connection to each server's iDRAC
• Dell OpenManage Enterprise (OME) — central console; device list + per-blade iDRAC Redfish collection (CPU/memory/storage/network/BIOS) plus OME-aggregated temperature/power/uptime/inventory
• HPE iLO — direct Redfish connection; CPU/memory via Oem.Hpe.SystemUsage (Intel only)

Benefits

• Enhanced visibility — servers, chassis, and switches monitored alongside vSphere in a single Aria Operations console.
• Proactive issue identification — 34 alerts detect high CPU/memory, temperature, and hardware failures early.
• Streamlined operations — hardware health and metrics correlate with virtual infrastructure.
• Simplified troubleshooting — relationship views (server ↔ chassis ↔ vSphere host) clarify dependencies.

Key features

• Centralized monitoring — multiple servers/chassis/switches visible alongside vSphere in a single Aria Operations console
• Proactive alerting — 34 alert definitions (CPU, memory, temperature, fan, PSU, disk, NIC, chassis, server health)
• Cross-adapter correlation — external relationships link Physical Servers to vSphere HostSystems by name
• Flexible management — three management interfaces (iDRAC / OME / iLO) per adapter instance
• Telemetry-based CPU/memory — from iDRAC MetricReports (Dell) or HPE SystemUsage (Intel)
• Network switch port detail — per-port status, speed, role, MTU for active/Up ports

Dashboards

The Management Pack ships three dashboards:

• VCF Servers Insight — adapter overview, collected objects, adapter performance, ad-hoc metric analysis.
• Physical Servers Performance — per-server performance metrics and health/BMC/model/BIOS columns.
• Physical Servers Health — health heatmap and an active alert list.

How does it work?

The adapter runs as a containerized collector on a VMware Aria Operations Cloud Proxy. On each collection cycle it:

1. Selects the management interface (iDRAC, OME, or iLO)
2. Authenticates to the target (iDRAC/iLO Redfish or OME)
3. Fetches systems, chassis and managers (Redfish) or device list (OME)
4. Collects inventory and metrics for each server/chassis/switch (in parallel via errgroup)
5. Builds Aria Operations objects with properties and metrics for each resource kind
6. Establishes containment relationships (Adapter → Chassis/Server; Chassis → Server/Switch)
7. Establishes external relationships (vSphere HostSystem → Physical Server) where ESXi is monitored
8. Logs out / cleans up session (iLO)

Non-fatal API errors are logged and skipped, so a partial collection is always returned to Aria Operations.