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Table Of Contents
Lab Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide
8 VMware, Inc.
VMwareVirtualCenterServerisacontrolpointforthedatacenterandprovides
datacenterservicessuchasaccesscontrol,performancemonitoring,andconfiguration.
VirtualCenteralsoprovidesadvancedVMwareInfrastructurecapabilitiesdescribedin
“UsingVMwareInfrastructureCapabilities”onpage 8.ESXhostscontinuetofunction
eveniftheVirtualCenterServerbecomesunreachable(forexample,
thenetwork
connectionissevered).
Using Clusters, Hosts, Resource Pools, and Datastores
IntheVirtualCenterServer,youcanview,configure,andmanagethefollowingkey
elements:
Computingandmemoryresourcescalledhosts,clusters,andresourcepools
Storageresourcescalleddatastores
Networks
Virtualmachines
SeetheVMwareInfrastructure3documentationat
http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vi_pages/vi_pubs_35.html
Hosts,clusters,andresourcepoolsprovideflexiblewaystoorganizetheaggregated
computingandmemoryresourcesinthevirtualenvironmentandlinkthembacktothe
underlyingphysicalresources.
Ahostrepresentstheaggregatecomputingandmemoryresourcesofaphysical
x86server.
Aclusteractsandcanbemanagedmuchlikeahost.Itrepresentstheaggregate
computingandmemoryresourcesofagroupofphysicalx86serverssharingthe
samenetworkandstoragearrays.
Resourcepoolsarepartitionsofcomputingandmemoryresourcesfromasingle
hostoracluster.WithVMware Distributed Resource Scheduler,thesepoolscanbe
hierarchicalandnested.
Using VMware Infrastructure Capabilities
Lab ManagerusesVMwareInfrastructurecapabilitiessuchasVMwareVMotion™,
VMwareDRS,andVMwareHighAvailability(HA).Thesearedistributedservicesthat
enableefficientandautomatedresourcemanagementandhighvirtualmachine
availability.