Exporting VMware inventory

You can export a VMware® vCenter resource inventory into CSV files. The information in the exported CSV files is used to size a target VMware vCenter Server® environment. It can also provide insights to the virtual machines in the source environment to help with migration planning.

Exporting lists

You can export the contents of an inventory list into a CSV file.

Procedure to export lists

From the VMware vSphere® Web Client, open a list view for an object type, for example, Virtual Machines or Hosts. You can access list views of objects from the Global Inventory Lists and the search results.
Click the Export icon in the lower right of a Global Inventory or Resources list view. To open the navigator view, press CTRL+ALT+7.
Select each row to be listed in the CSV file for each of the following sections:
- Global Inventory Lists > Virtual Machines
- Resources > vCenter Servers
- Resources > Datacenters
- Resources > Hosts
- Resources > Clusters
- Resources > Resource Pools
- Resources > Datastores
- Resources > Datastore Clusters
- Resources > Networks
- Resources > Distributed Port Groups
- Resources > Distributed Switches
For each of the previous items, click Export and save to a file name that is labeled with the contents, such as:
- Global Inventory Lists > Virtual Machines
- Resources > vCenter Servers > exportlist-vcenters.csv
- Resources > Datacenters > exportlist-datacenters.csv
- Resources > Hosts > exportlist-hosts.csv
- Resources > Clusters > exportlist-clusters.csv
- Resources > Resource Pools > exportlist-respools.csv
- Resources > Datastores > exportlist-datastores.csv
- Resources > Datastore Clusters > exportlist-dsclusters.csv
- Resources > Networks > exportlist-networks.csv
- Resources > Distributed Port Groups > exportlist-dpgs.csv
- Resources > Distributed Switches > exportlist-dswitches.csv
Package all .csv files into a single compressed file. For example, vCenterName-Inventory.zip.
Use the contents of the file to size the target environment.