The Splunk OVA for VMware is a preconfigured Splunk platform software bundle, that is distributed as an OVA. It contains a Splunk platform heavy forwarder, preconfigured to serve as a data collection node (DCN), that collects API data, such as performance, inventory, hierarchy, task, and event data from your virtualized environment.

The Splunk OVA for VMware is not compatible with the Splunk App for Infrastructure (SAI). To monitor VMware vCenter Server data with SAI, collect data with the Splunk VMware OVA for ITSI (https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/4760/).

The Splunk Add-on for VMware is a standalone app that collects data from VMware ESXi, and is used to ingest and normalize data (For example: eventtypes and tagging) for use with the ITSI Virtualization module and the Splunk App for VMware.