Specifications

Basic System Administration
26 VMware, Inc.
Managed Components
VirtualCentermonitorsandmanagesvariouscomponentsofyourvirtualandphysical
infrastructure.Somecomponentsareavailablefororganizingpotentiallyhundredsof
virtualmachinesandotherobjects.Theycanberenamedtorepresenttheirpurposes;
forexample,theycanbenamedaftercompanydepartmentsorlocationsorfunctions.
Themanagedcomponentsare:
 VirtualMachinesandTemplates–Avirtualizedx86personalcomputer
environmentinwhichaguestoperatingsystemandassociatedapplication
softwarecanrun.Multiplevirtualmachinescanoperateonthesamemanagedhost
machineconcurrently.Templatesareadesignatedtypeofvirtualmachine.
 Hosts–Theprimarycomponentuponwhichallvirtualmachinesreside.Ifthe
VMwareInfrastructureClientisconnectedtoaVirtualCenterServer,allhosts
managedbythatVirtualCenterServerareavailableformanagement.Ifthe
VMwareInfrastructureClientisconnecteddirectlytoanESXServerhost,onlythat
hostisavailable
formanagement.
 Resourcepools–Astructurethatallowsdelegationofcontrolovertheresources
ofahost.Resourcepoolsareusedtocompartmentalizeallresourcesinacluster.
Youcancreatemultipleresourcepoolsasdirectchildrenofahostorclusterand
configurethem.Thendelegatecontroloverthemtoother
individualsor
organizations.ThemanagedresourcesareCPUandmemoryfromahostorcluster.
Virtualmachinesexecutein,anddrawtheirresourcesfrom,resourcepools.
 Clusters–AcollectionofESXServerhostswithsharedresourcesandashared
managementinterface.Whenyouaddahosttoacluster,thehost’sresources
becomepartofthecluster’sresources.Theclustermanagestheresourcesofall
hosts.SeetheResourceManagementGuide.
 Datastores–Virtualrepresentationsofcombinationsofunderlyingphysical
storageresourcesinthedatacenter.Thesephysicalstorageresourcescancome
fromthelocalSCSIdiskoftheserver,theFibreChannelSANdiskarrays,theiSCSI
SANdiskarrays,orNetworkAttachedStorage(NAS)arrays.
 Networks–Networksthatconnectvirtualmachinestoeachotherinthevirtual
environmentortothephysicalnetworkoutside.
N
OTEWhenVirtualCenterreferstoahost,thismeansthephysicalmachineon
whichthevirtualmachinesarerunning.AllvirtualmachineswithintheVMware
InfrastructureenvironmentrunonESXServerorhosts.Thetermhostinthis
manualmeanstheESXServerhostthathasvirtualmachinesonit.