Get network usage from vmware.vim.vimclient

I figured it out by staring at the SOAP request and making some intuitive leaps.

I believe, the VMWare API is state-based, similar to how the X11 API is state-based (you can deal with various objects in server memory).

Specifically, you first connect a session to the server, then use that session to log in. When you connect to a session, vmware will return a list of "manager objects" and their subsequent MoRefs. Therefore, the correct way to query this information is as follows:

VimClient vimClient = new VMware.Vim.VimClientImpl();
var serviceContent = vimClient.Connect(hostname, VMware.Vim.CommunicationProtocol.Https, null);
var userSession = vimClient.Login(un, pwd);

NameValueCollection filter = new NameValueCollection();
filter.Add("Name", vmName2LookFor);

String[] viewProperties = null;

var VMs = vimClient.FindEntityViews(typeof(VMware.Vim.VirtualMachine), null, filter, viewProperties);
              .Cast<VMware.Vim.VirtualMachine>()
              .ToList();
var vm = VMs.FirstOrDefault(); // blindly grab for example purposes

var pm = new VMware.Vim.PerformanceManager(vimClient, serviceContent.PerfManager);
pm.QueryAvailablePerfMetric(vm.MoRef, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1), DateTime.Now, null)

Note that when creating the PerformanceManager object, we'll get the MoRef from the ServiceContent object that was created when initially connecting to the VMWare API .

I believe it's possible to version control the internal manager this way, but that's just a guess.

Also note that I used vimClient.FindEntityViews for illustration purposes, I could have used a single vimClient.FindEntityView as well.

Third note: MoRef stands for "Managed Object Reference".

Fourth note: For performance reasons, viewProperties in vimClient.FindEntityViews informs vmware to send only the specified properties. For example, finding a VM by IP involves getting all the VMs, and searching through them all to find the VM with the IP you're looking for. You don't need to care about any other properties, so you can tell vmware not to send them. If you have a lot of infrastructure then this will greatly improve performance. In the above case, if I am interested in IP addresses, I would

String[] viewProperties = new[]{ "Guest.Net" };