Gathering Data with a TaskManager Interface

TaskManager
is a service interface that you can also use for accessing and manipulating
Task
objects. This approach uses a
PropertyCollector
that includes the
recentTask
property of the
TaskManager
managed object that corresponds to the Recent Tasks pane at the bottom of the vSphere client User Interface.
You can use the following
TaskManager
properties in your client application.
  • description
    TaskDescription
    object that includes a
    methodInfo
    property.
    methodInfo
    contains a key-based array that
    TaskManager
    uses to populate the value of a
    TaskInfo
    data object’s
    descriptionId
    property with the name of the operation. Examples of two elements from this key-based array are
    methodInfo["Folder.createVm"]
    and
    methodInfo["Folder.createClusterEx"]
    .
  • recentTask
    – Array of
    Task
    managed object references that are queued to run, running, or completed within the past 10 minutes. On ESX/ESXi hosts that are managed by a vCenter Server, a completed task must also be one of the 200 most recent tasks to be included in the array. A vSphere Client connected to a vSphere Server displays queued, running, and completed tasks in the Recent Tasks pane.
In addition to these properties,
TaskManager
has the following methods:
  • CreateTask
    – Used by other methods to create a custom
    Task
    object. Developers creating extensions can use this method to create custom
    Task
    objects.
  • CreateCollectorForTasks
    – Creates an object that contains all tasks from the vCenter Server database that meet specific criteria. You cannot run this method against an ESX/ESXi system. See Using a TaskHistoryCollector.
Figure 1 shows a UML class diagram for
TaskManager
and associated objects.
TaskManager and Task Managed Objects
Shows Task Manager with Task object, Description, and Task Info.