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Table Of Contents
A vSphere administrator or other privileged user can determine who can access or modify a virtual
machine by setting permissions on the virtual machine. See the vSphere Security documentation.
Virtual Machine Hardware Available to vSphere Virtual
Machines
VMware provides devices, resources, profiles, and vServices that you can configure or add to your virtual
machine.
Not all hardware devices are available to every virtual machine. The host that the virtual machine runs on
and the guest operating system must support devices that you add or configurations that you make. To
verify support for a device in your environment, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility or the Guest Operating System Installation Guide at
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html.
In some cases, the host might not have the required vSphere license for a resource or device. Licensing
in vSphere is applicable to ESXi hosts, vCenter Server, and solutions and can be based on different
criteria, depending on the specifics of each product. For information about vSphere licensing, see the
vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.
The PCI and SIO virtual hardware devices are part of the virtual motherboard, but cannot be configured
or removed.
Table 12. Virtual Machine Hardware and Descriptions
Hardware Device Description
CPU You can configure a virtual machine that runs on an ESXi host to have one or more
virtual processors. A virtual machine cannot have more virtual CPUs than the actual
number of logical CPUs on the host. You can change the number of CPUs allocated to
a virtual machine and configure advanced CPU features, such as the CPU
Identification Mask and hyperthreaded core sharing.
Chipset The motherboard uses VMware proprietary devices based on the following chips:
n
Intel 440BX AGPset 82443BX Host Bridge/Controller
n
Intel 82371AB (PIIX4) PCI ISA IDE Xcelerator
n
National Semiconductor PC87338 ACPI 1.0 and PC98/99 Compliant SuperI/O
n
Intel 82093AA I/O Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller
DVD/CD-ROM Drive Installed by default when you create a new vSphere virtual machine. You can configure
DVD/CD-ROM devices to connect to client devices, host devices, or datastore ISO
files. You can add, remove, or configure DVD/CD-ROM devices.
Floppy Drive Installed by default when you create a new vSphere virtual machine. You can connect
to a floppy drive located on the ESXi host, a floppy (.flp) image, or the floppy drive on
your local system. You can add, remove, or configure floppy devices.
Hard Disk Stores the virtual machine's operating system, program files, and other data
associated with its activities. A virtual disk is a large physical file, or a set of files, that
can be copied, moved, archived, and backed up as easily as any other file.
IDE 0, IDE 1 By default, two Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interfaces are presented to the
virtual machine. The IDE interface (controller) is a standard way for storage devices
(Floppy drives, hard drives and CD-ROM drives) to connect to the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
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