You can use the navigator to browse and select objects in the vSphere Client inventory as an alternative to the hierarchical inventory tree.

Unlike the inventory tree, which presents hierarchical arrangements of parent and child objects arranged in the Hosts and Clusters, VMs and Templates, Storage, and Networking views, the navigator presents a graph-based view of the inventory. You can navigate from an object to its related objects, regardless of type.

Procedure

  1. From the vSphere Client Home, click Global Inventory Lists.
  2. Under Global Inventory Lists, click one of the object categories to view objects of that type.
    For example, click Hosts to view hosts in the vSphere Client inventory.
  3. Click an object in the list once to display information about the object in the center pane of the vSphere Client.
  4. (Optional) Click the object again to open it.
    Opening an object brings it to the top of the navigator and displays related object categories beneath it.
    For example, opening a host allows you to see the child resource pools, virtual machines, vApps, datastores, standard networks, distributed switches, and distributed port groups associated with this host.
  5. To access additional information and actions, click one of the tabs in the center pane.
    Option Description
    Getting Started View introductory information and access basic actions.
    Summary View basic status and configuration for an object.
    Monitor View alarms, performance data, resource allocation, events, and other status information for an object.
    Configure Configure settings, alarm definitions, tags, and permissions.
    Permissions View, add, change, and delete permissions. This tab is only available for logged in users with administration privileges.
    Related Objects tabs Tabs with lists of the objects related to the object that you selected. For example, if you select a host, the tabs that you see are VMs, Resource Pools, Datastores, and Networks.