5.8

Table Of Contents
Figure 21. Layers of the Software-Defined Data Center
Self-service application
development
Application blueprinting
Application deployment
standardization
Infrastructure Service
Self-service user portal
Low administration
overhead
Management
Monitoring with performance
and capacity
Orchestration
Virtualization of physical compute, storage, and network assets
Catalogs and
standard templates
Software-defined Data Center Core Infrastructure
Application Platform Service
SDDC Core
Infrastructure
The basis of the vCloud Suite deployment is the resource abstraction layer.
By using VMware software, you can virtualize compute, network, and
storage resources in your data center and abstract them from the underlying
hardware. ESXi and vCenter Server enable you to establish a robust
virtualized environment into which all other solutions integrate. The
resource abstraction layer provides the foundation for the integration of
orchestration and monitoring solutions by VMware. Additional processes
and technologies build on top of the infrastructure to enable infrastructure as
a service and platform as a service.
Infrastructure Service
Infrastructure services introduce fast, self-service provisioning of virtual
machines to physical, virtualized, or hybrid clouds. The IaaS layer is
represented mainly by vCloud Automation Center, which provides service
provisioning, catalog management, policy based management ,and
authorization.
Application Platform
Service
The application platform service enables end-to-end deployment and
configuration of applications, along with their dependencies, to a target
deployment infrastructure.
You can enhance your vCloud Suite environment by integrating additional products and services by
VMware, in order to enable capabilities such as disaster recovery to cloud, software-defined storage, and
software-defined networking. For information about implementing failover protection for virtual machines
in vCloud Air, see “Disaster Recovery to Cloud,” on page 51.
vCloud Suite Architecture Overview and Use Cases
12 VMware, Inc.