Monitoring VMware using Zabbix

Zabbix has native support for VMware by integrating with vCenter API. Zabbix does not require any 3rd party plugins, templates, or modules. Zabbix can monitor vCenter resources, data stores, networks, auto discover ESXi hosts and guest VMs.

Complete the base server setup as outlined in zabbix-docker and then follow the below steps for VMware integration and monitoring.

Requirements

vSphere server with multiple ESXi hosts registered
Guest VMs with VMware Tools installed
Recommended that all guest VMs have FQDN names
vSphere user named zabbix with read-only permissions on all objects

Zabbix Docker Compose

By default, the Zabbix docker image does not start any VMware collectors. In the docker-compose zabbix-server environment section add ZBX_STARTVMWARECOLLECTORS: 3 to start the VMware collector.
Note that you need 2 x the number of collectors for every vSphere instance you want to monitor.
Run docker-compose down; docker-compose up -d to restart Zabbix and enable the VMware collectors.

# Zabbix Server Docker Compose
  zabbix-server:
	...
    environment:
	  ...
      ZBX_STARTVMWARECOLLECTORS: 3

Zabbix Configuration

Create a new host for the vSphere
In the template section, use the VMware FQDN and set the following macros
If VMware guests are not using FQDN hostnames, then use the VMware template and Zabbix will used UUIDs for hostnames. This is ugly and not preferred.

Name	Value	Description
`{$VMWARE.URL}`	https://vsphere.example.internal/sdk	VMware service (vCenter or ESXi hypervisor) SDK URL (https://servername/sdk)
`{$VMWARE.USERNAME}`	zabbix@vsphere.local	VMware service user name
`{$VMWARE.PASSWORD}`	supersecret	VMware service {$VMWARE.USERNAME} user password

Automatically Adding Discovered Hosts to Inventory

Navigate to:

Data Collection / Templates / Select VMware FQDN template / Discovery Rules

Auto adding VMware ESXi Hosts:

Discover VMware hypervisor / Host Prototypes / {#HVNAME} / Inventory / Select Automatic / Click Update

Auto adding VMware ESXi Guests:

Discover VMware VMs FQDN / Host Prototypes / {#VMNAME} / Inventory / Select Automatic / Click Update

Notes

Zabbix will auto discover EXSi hosts and all guest VMs. Do not add them manually to Zabbix.
The default poll time is 1 hour, so be patient!
You can always open the foo tab and click the Execute Now button.
To validate, ensure the vSphere version data is populated. The other items will be populated within 1 hour.

References:

Zabbix VM Monitoring