MerlinvSphere

vSphere and VCF inventory in one run

Point MerlinvSphere at a vCenter, an ESXi host, SDDC Manager, NSX Manager or VCF Operations. It finds the other products that one knows about, collects them all in parallel, and writes one CSV per tab and a single formatted Excel workbook. Every row carries the same object key in every tab, so a VM in the vCenter inventory joins to its NSX segment, its Operations health and its Automation deployment without matching on names.

It runs on your Windows PC or a jump host. No PowerCLI, no Excel and no agent on anything it reads.

Read-only, and it keeps no secrets

• MerlinvSphere never creates, changes or deletes anything in vCenter, ESXi, SDDC Manager, NSX or the Operations products. This is enforced in the code: the vSphere client can send only an allowlist of read methods, and the REST client sends only reads plus a short, documented list of sign-in and query calls.
• Credential endpoints are blocked, so passwords and keys are never collected. Passwords, tokens and session IDs never reach a log or an export.
• Certificates are checked. An untrusted one can be trusted explicitly, which pins its thumbprint for that target.
• Saved passwords are kept in Windows Credential Manager, for your Windows account only.

Is it for you?

It's a good fit if you run assessments, health checks or migration planning on vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation, and want the whole estate in one workbook, with the findings and the licensing math already done.

It's probably not for you if you want live monitoring or alerting. MerlinvSphere takes a snapshot when you run it, or on a schedule; it doesn't watch the environment between runs.

Features

Inventory

• vCenter and ESXi: the tabs of an RVTools export (vInfo, vCPU, vMemory, vDisk, vNetwork, vHost, vCluster, vDatastore and the rest), with an option to use RVTools column names.
• Beyond that: tags, custom attributes, storage policies and compliance, vSAN, host configuration, services and VIBs, DRS rules, roles and permissions, alarms, events, content libraries, certificates and the vCenter appliance.
• SDDC Manager workload domains, NSX segments and gateways, and VCF Operations, Logs, Automation and Lifecycle, in the same run.

Analysis

• 67 health checks across every product, each with a severity and a remediation. Switch any rule off or change its thresholds.
• Licensing: cores to license, with the 16-core minimum, and the VCF, VVF, Standard, Enterprise Plus and Essentials Plus editions side by side.
• Migration readiness for each VM, capacity forecasts and consolidation ratios, and rightsizing from VCF Operations or from vCenter performance data.
• A DR view that lists each VM's tier and backup policy, from a tag or custom attribute you choose.

Reports and repeat runs

• A single-file HTML executive report with charts, ready to email, with your client's logo if you add one.
• Run history and drift: compare two runs to see what was added, removed or reconfigured.
• Anonymize mode replaces names, addresses and users with stable aliases in every file written.
• Saved profiles, a command line with exit codes, and scheduled runs through Windows Task Scheduler.

Price

Free. No trial, subscription, account or ads.

Privacy

• Everything it collects is written to your PC: the run folder you choose, and a local history database.
• It talks only to the products you point it at. MerlinvSphere collects no usage data and doesn't check for updates.

Permissions

Read-only roles are enough for most of the inventory:

A few reads need more than Read-only, such as VIBs and storage policies; without the privilege those tabs are recorded as skipped, and the rest of the run carries on.

Requirements

Install

1. Download the zip, extract it, and run the setup file inside. Setup and the app are digitally signed by Virtual Merlin, Inc., so Windows shows that name as the publisher. If Windows still shows "Windows protected your PC" while the new signature builds reputation, click More info, check the publisher is Virtual Merlin, Inc., then click Run anyway.
2. Start MerlinvSphere, choose the product and enter its address and a read-only account.
3. Click Collect. The CSV files, the workbook and the report go to a folder under Documents\MerlinvSphere.

SHA-256 of the setup file inside the zip:

4CC6425749BF0050904629B994A52A8157CF0B7D8350E2F2803CE67E936A08DB

Known limitations

• Windows sign-in to vCenter works only with Integrated Windows Authentication on vCenter 7.0 and 8.0, and skips the tabs read through the vCenter REST API.
• The licensing figures follow Broadcom's published terms when this version was built. Check them before quoting.
• A scheduled run works only while you are signed in to Windows.