5.5

vSphere Resources
vCloud Director relies on vSphere resources to provide CPU and memory to run virtual machines. In
addition, vSphere datastores provide storage for virtual machine files and other files necessary for virtual
machine operations. vCloud Director also utilizes vSphere distributed switches and vSphere port groups to
support virtual machine networking.
You can use these underlying vSphere resources to create cloud resources.
Cloud Resources
Cloud resources are an abstraction of their underlying vSphere resources. They provide the compute and
memory resources for vCloud Director virtual machines and vApps. A vApp is a virtual system that
contains one or more individual virtual machines, along with parameters that define operational details.
Cloud resources also provide access to storage and network connectivity.
Cloud resources include provider and organization virtual datacenters, external networks, organization
virtual datacenter networks, and network pools. Before you can add cloud resources to vCloud Director,
you must add vSphere resources.
Provider Virtual Datacenters
A provider virtual datacenter combines the compute and memory resources of a single vCenter Server
resource pool with the storage resources of one or more datastores available to that resource pool.
You can create multiple provider virtual datacenters for users in different geographic locations or business
units, or for users with different performance requirements.
Organization Virtual Datacenters
An organization virtual datacenter provides resources to an organization and is partitioned from a provider
virtual datacenter. Organization virtual datacenters provide an environment where virtual systems can be
stored, deployed, and operated. They also provide storage for virtual media, such as floppy disks and CD
ROMs.
A single organization can have multiple organization virtual datacenters.
vCloud Director Networking
vCloud Director supports three types of networks.
n
External networks
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Organization virtual datacenter networks
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vApp networks
Some organization virtual datacenter networks and all vApp networks are backed by network pools.
External Networks
An external network is a logical, differentiated network based on a vSphere port group. organization virtual
datacenter networks can connect to external networks to provide Internet connectivity to virtual machines
inside of a vApp.
Only system administrators create and manage external networks.
vCloud Director Administrator's Guide
12 VMware, Inc.