Virtual Machine Statistics

With the VM Guest API, you can monitor various statistics about a virtual machine. You can use this information to retrieve scheduling and resource usage information about its environment. With the help of these statistics, a virtual machine can immediately react to changes in its virtual environment at the application layer.

The information you can retrieve by using the VM Guest API includes:

• Amount of memory reserved for the virtual machine.
• Amount of memory being used by the virtual machine.
• Upper limit of memory available to the virtual machine.
• Number of memory shares assigned to the virtual machine.
• Maximum speed of the virtual machine’s CPU.
• Reserved rate at which the virtual machine is allowed to execute. An idling virtual machine might consume CPU cycles at a much lower rate.
• Number of CPU shares assigned to the virtual machine.
• Elapsed time since the virtual machine was last powered on or reset.
• CPU time consumed by a particular virtual machine. When combined with other measurements, you can estimate how fast the virtual machine’s CPUs are running compared to the host CPUs.
  Important: The API uses a handle that provides access to the statistics. The handle also is a mechanism to determine whether the API can provide accurate information. (Certain events, such as migrating a virtual machine with VMotion™, temporarily make it impossible to provide accurate information.)