What is VMware vSphere

• Previously known as Virtual Infrastructure (VI).
• In this post vSphere 5.x is used as an example to relate and define vSphere and its components. Though definition will remain same, in future releases, features may vary.
• It is a product suite or brand name that includes multiple products which enables organizations to implement server virtualization.

Image: Vmware

• vSphere has two important layers as below.
  • Virtualization layer which is provided by ESXi Server (Hypervisor)
  • Centralised management layer which is provided by vCenter Server
• We can simply install ESXi without vCenter Server but that will not be considered as vSphere. The term ‘vSphere’ represents product suit and not just instance of it.
• VMware vSphere, is a necessary component of the vCloud Suite for implementing cloud computing.
• vSphere includes below services as part of product suite
  • VMware ESXi –  Virtualization Layer.
  • VMware vCenter Server – Centralized management layer for virtual infrastructure..
  • VMware vSphere Client – allows users to remotely connect to ESXi or vCenter Server.
  • VMware vSphere Web Client – allows users to remotely connect to vCenter Server from a variety of Web browsers.
  • VMware vSphere SDK – provides interfaces for accessing vSphere components.
  • VMFS – provides a high performance cluster file system.
  • vSphere Virtual SMP – allows a single virtual machine to use multiple virtual CPUs.
  • vSphere vMotion – allows live migration for powered-on virtual machines.
  • vSphere Storage vMotion –  allows virtual machine files to be moved to a new data store while a VM is Powered on.
  • vSphere High Availability (HA) – allows virtual machines to be restarted on available servers in the event of any failure.
  • vSphere DRS – Dynamic workload management for compute resources across hosts.
  • vSphere Storage DRS – Dynamic storage capacity management.
  • vSphere Fault Tolerance – provides continuous availability.
  • vSphere Distributed Switch –  allows VMs to maintain network configurations as the VMs migrate across multiple hosts.
  • Host Profiles – provides a way to create user-defined configuration policies.

For more details about VMWare vSphere please refer VMware portal.