VMware’s ESXi-Arm Fling Arm hypervisor provides monitoring data to VMware since the latest update. The hypervisor shares diagnostic data once a week.
ESXi-Arm Fling is a hypervisor for Arm-based processors in public cloud environments, such as the Ampere Ultra processors. The hypervisor is experimental and is not yet scheduled to become an actual VMware product.
It now appears that the latest version (1.10) provides VMware with diagnostic data of its environment once a week. This concerns information about the NUM, manufacturer and CPU, such as the number of cores. The transmit includes firmware, platform vendor and PCI device data as well. VMware says it uses the information to improve the solution’s quality.
Correction (22-7): an earlier version of this article claimed that VMware collected diagnostic data without consent. This is not the case.
Other Arm hypervisor projects
It’s possible that VMware collects the data to optimize and release the product. In addition to ESXi-Arm Fling, VMware develops two other hypervisors for Arm platforms. These are the Fusion desktop hypervisor for macOS and project Monterey, which bring security and networking to SmartNics.
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