Users Guide

Introduction to the VMware Virtual Infrastructure 31
VMware Virtual Infrastructure Overview
The following table lists the available types of folders, and explains the levels at which
they can exist and the objects they can contain.
Folder Types
Folders may contain nested folders of the same type, but not of other types. It is not
possible, for example, to create a Virtual Machine folder within a Datacenter folder.
Folders are provided strictly for organizational and management purposes. They offer a
way for an administrator to classify objects that is not tied to (and therefore bound by)
the virtual/physical relationship framework. For example, two Datacenter folders are
created at a VirtualCenter root; one folder is labelled Primary Datacenters and the other
is labelled Disaster Recovery Datacenters. An administrator can configure multiple
Primary Datacenters containing production ESX Servers, place those Datacenters in the
Primary Datacenters folder, and then assign the necessary permissions to that folder to
allow standard users to perform management tasks for the entire primary virtual
infrastructure. The administrator can then configure multiple Disaster Recovery
Datacenters containing disaster recovery ESX Servers, place those Datacenters in the
Disaster Recovery Datacenters folder, and assign a different set of permissions to that
folder. This prevents standard users from building virtual machines that may take over
resources that are necessarily dedicated to HA-configured disaster failover virtual
infrastructure components.
Using vFoglight Cartridge for VMware, you can observe either a Topology View that
does not use folders and presents a logical breakdown of the virtual infrastructure by
component or a Hierarchy View that uses folders and presents the familiar interface that
is found within the VirtualCenter management server.
Folder Type Level at Which It Can Exist Objects It Can Contain
Datacenter VirtualCenter Root Datacenters
Virtual Machine Datacenter Virtual Machines and
Templates
Compute Resources Datacenter Hosts and Clusters