6.0.1

Table 1‑2. Virtual Machine Hardware and Descriptions (Continued)
Hardware Device Description
PCI Device You can add up to 16 PCI vSphere DirectPath devices to a virtual machine. The
devices must be reserved for PCI passthrough on the host on which the virtual
machine runs. Snapshots are not supported with DirectPath I/O passthrough
devices.
Pointing device Mirrors the pointing device that is connected to the virtual machine console
when you first connect to the console.
Serial Port Interface for connecting peripherals to the virtual machine. The virtual serial
port can connect to a physical serial port, to a file on the host computer, or over
the network. You can also use it to establish a direct connection between two
virtual machines or a connection between a virtual machine and an application
on the host computer. You can configure a virtual machine with up to 32 serial
ports. You can add, remove, or configure virtual serial ports.
SATA controller Provides access to virtual disks and DVD/CD-ROM devices. The SATA virtual
controller appears to a virtual machine as an AHCI SATA Controller.
SCSI controller Provides access to virtual disks. The SCSI virtual controller appears to a virtual
machine as different types of controllers, including LSI Logic Parallel, LSI Logic
SAS, and VMware Paravirtual. You can change the SCSI controller type, allocate
bus sharing for a virtual machine, or add a paravirtualized SCSI controller.
SCSI device By default, a SCSI device interface is available to the virtual machine. The SCSI
interface is a typical way to connect storage devices (floppy drives, hard drives,
and DVD/CD-ROMs) to a virtual machine. You can add, remove, or configure
SCSI devices.
SIO controller Provides serial and parallel ports, floppy devices, and performs system
management activities. One SIO controller is available to the virtual machine.
You cannot configure or remove this device.
USB controller The USB hardware chip that provides USB function to the USB ports that it
manages. The virtual USB Controller is the software virtualization of the USB
host controller function in the virtual machine.
USB device You can add multiple USB devices, such as security dongles and mass storage
devices, to a virtual machine. The USB devices can be connected to an ESXi host
or a client computer.
VMCI Virtual Machine Communication Interface device. Provides a high-speed
communication channel between a virtual machine and the hypervisor. You
cannot add or remove VMCI devices.
Virtual Machine Options and Resources
Each virtual device performs the same function for the virtual machine as hardware on a physical computer
does.
A virtual machine might be running in any of several locations, such as ESXi hosts, datacenters, clusters, or
resource pools. Many of the options and resources that you configure have dependencies on and
relationships with these objects.
Every virtual machine has CPU, memory, and disk resources. CPU virtualization emphasizes performance
and runs directly on the processor whenever possible. The underlying physical resources are used whenever
possible. The virtualization layer runs instructions only as needed to make virtual machines operate as if
they were running directly on a physical machine.
All recent operating systems provide support for virtual memory, allowing software to use more memory
than the machine physically has. Similarly, the ESXi hypervisor provides support for overcommitting
virtual machine memory, where the amount of guest memory configured for all virtual machines might be
larger than the amount of the host's physical memory.
Chapter 1 Introduction to VMware vSphere Virtual Machines
VMware, Inc. 15