Hardware monitoring in the VMware Management Pack

Applies to: OpsLogix VMware Management Pack (all versions) with the VMware Hardware Management Pack · SCOM 2019, 2022, 2025 · vCenter 7.0, 8.0, 9.0
Last updated: October 2026 · Reading time: 5 minutes

The VMware Hardware Management Pack (OpsLogix IMP - VMware Hardware Monitoring) monitors the hardware health of your ESXi hosts: fans, power supplies, temperature, storage controllers and more. This article explains which sensor types it covers, the small set and full set modes, what you need on the ESXi side, and how health rolls up to the host.

Where the data comes from

The MP reads the same hardware health information that the vSphere Client shows for a host under Monitor > Hardware Health. ESXi gets most of this information from CIM (Common Information Model) providers on the host. That has two consequences:

• Use the vendor-specific ESXi image from your server vendor (for example Dell, HPE or Lenovo), or install the vendor's CIM providers. The generic VMware image often reports fewer sensors.
• If the vSphere Client shows no sensor data for a host, SCOM won't show any either. Fix it in vSphere first.

The MP uses the vCenter connection and monitoring account of the VMware Management Pack. No separate credentials or access to the server's management board (iLO, iDRAC and so on) are needed.

Sensor types

Each sensor type has its own class, monitor and state view. The views are in the Monitoring workspace under VMware > Hardware.

Power consumption readings (in watts or amps) appear under ESX Host Voltage, not under Power Supply. Power Supply only shows the status of the power supplies.

How the monitors work

• Interval: the monitors run every 5 minutes (300 seconds). Discovery runs every 8 hours (28,800 seconds).
• Health state: the sensor status from vCenter decides the state. Green is Healthy, yellow is Warning, red is Critical. An unknown status doesn't change the state.
• Alerts: raised from Warning, with a severity that matches the health state, and closed automatically. The alert names the host and lists the unhealthy components on that host.
• Network monitor: off by default. A physical network adapter is Healthy when it has a link and Warning when it has no link. Unused or unplugged ports would therefore raise alerts. Turn it on with an override only for the hosts or adapters where you want that.

Health rollup to the host

Each sensor type has a dependency monitor on the VMware ESX Server object, for example "Host Fan Availability State Rollup". There are 11, one per class. Each one takes the worst state of that sensor type on the host and rolls it up to the host's availability health.

Small set and full set

The MP has two modes. Small set is the default.

The mode is set with the SmallSet parameter on both the discoveries and the monitors. Both must use the same value. To switch to the full set, follow Small set vs. full set hardware monitoring.

The deprecated CPU and PCI classes

The classes ESX Host CPU (Deprecated) and ESX Host PCI (Deprecated) are still in the MP, and their discoveries and monitors are still enabled. But current versions don't collect data for them:

• Processor health is reported under ESX Host Processor.
• PCI sensor data is no longer collected.

On a normal install, no objects of these two classes appear and the console has no views for them. If your management group still has CPU or PCI objects from an older version, they no longer get new data. You can remove them:

1. Create overrides that set Enabled = False for the discoveries VMware ESX Host Hardware CPU Discovery and VMware ESX Host Hardware PCI Discovery.
2. Run Remove-SCOMDisabledClassInstance in the Operations Manager Shell.

Use ESX Host Processor for processor health and for any new overrides.

See also

• Small set vs. full set hardware monitoring
• Rules and monitors in the VMware Management Pack
• Exclude VMware components from monitoring
• Sizing for the VMware Management Pack
• Choose which VMware MP files to import