Installation guide

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VMware ESX Server Administration Guide
VMware ESX Server System Architecture
VMware ESX Server incorporates a resource manager and a service console that
provides bootstrapping, management and other services.
The design of the ESX Server core architecture implements the abstractions that allow
hardware resources to be allocated to multiple workloads in fully isolated
environments.
The key elements of the system’s design are:
• The VMware virtualization layer, which provides the idealized hardware
environment and virtualization of underlying physical resources
• The resource manager, which enables the partitioning and guaranteed delivery
of CPU, memory, network bandwidth and disk bandwidth to each virtual
machine
• The hardware interface components, including device drivers, which enable
hardware-specific service delivery while hiding hardware differences from other
parts of the system
Virtualization
The VMware virtualization layer brings hardware virtualization, pioneered on IBM VM/
370 and other mainframe environments, to the standard Intel server platform. The
virtualization layer is common among VMware desktop and server products,
providing a consistent platform for development, testing, delivery and support of
application workloads from the developer desktop to the workgroup to the data
center.
As with mainframe virtualization, the VMware virtual machine offers complete
hardware virtualization; the guest operating system and applications (those operating