What Are the Components and Services of the vSphere Environment

At the core of
vSphere Automation
is vSphere, which provides the virtualization layer of the software-defined data center.
vCenter Server
is a preconfigured virtual machine optimized for running the
vCenter Server
service and the
vCenter Server
components.
vCenter Server
service acts as a central administrator for
ESXi
hosts.

Authentication Services Installed with
vCenter Server

The
vCenter Server
group of authentication services includes
vCenter Single Sign-On
, License Service, Lookup Service, and VMware Certificate Authority. The services installed with the
vCenter Server
appliance are common to the entire virtual environment. A
vCenter Server
can be connected to one or more
vCenter Server
instances. In a deployment that consists of more than one
vCenter Server
, the data of each service is replicated across all
vCenter Server
instances.
In the client applications that use the
vSphere Automation
API, you use the
vCenter Single Sign-On
and the Lookup Service on the
vCenter Server
to provide a range of functionality.
Authentication and Session Management
You use the
vCenter Single Sign-On
service to establish an authenticated session with the
vSphere Automation
API endpoint. You send credentials to the
vCenter Single Sign-On
service and receive a SAML token that you use to retrieve a session ID from the
vSphere Automation
API endpoint. Alternatively, you can access the
vSphere Automation
APIs in a sessionless manner. You must simply include the SAML token in every request that you issue to the
vSphere Automation
API endpoint.
Service Discovery
You use the Lookup Service to retrieve the endpoint URL for the
vCenter Single Sign-On
service on the
vCenter Server
, the location of the
vCenter Server
instances, and the
vSphere Automation
API endpoint.

Components Installed with
vCenter Server

vCenter Server
is a central administration point for
ESXi
hosts. The group of components installed when you install
vCenter Server
include the
vCenter Server
service,
vSphere Client
, VMware vSphere®Auto Deploy, VMware vSphere®ESXi Dump Collector, VMware vSphere® Syslog Collector, and
vSphere Lifecycle Manager
service.
You can use the
vSphere Automation
API endpoint to access the following services running on
vCenter Server
.
Content Library
You can use content libraries to share virtual machines, vApps, and other files, such as ISO, OVA, and text files, across the software-defined data center. You can create, share, and subscribe to content libraries on the same
vCenter Server
instance or on a remote instance. Sharing content libraries promotes consistency, compliance, efficiency, and automation in deploying workloads at scale.
You can also create OVF and VM templates from virtual machines and vApps in hosts, resource pools, and clusters. You can then use the OVF and VM templates to deploy new virtual machines and vApps.
Starting with vSphere 7.0, you can edit the contents of a VM template. You can check out the library item that contains the VM template. After editing the VM template, check in the library item to save the changes to the virtual machine.
Virtual Machine
You can use the
vSphere Automation
APIs to create, configure, and manage the life cycle of virtual machines in your environment.
Starting with vSphere 7.0, you can also clone, create an instant clone, migrate, register, and unregister a virtual machine.
vSphere Lifecycle Manager
Starting with vSphere 7.0, the life cycle of
ESXi
hosts and clusters can be managed through the VMware vSphere®Lifecycle Manager feature. Based on the current state of the hosts in a cluster, you can easily create a desired software specification by using the contents of a software depot. Then you validate the desired software specification and you apply the specification on all hosts in the cluster.
vSphere Tags
With vSphere tags you can attach metadata to vSphere objects, and as a result, make it easier to filter and sort these objects. You can use the
vSphere Automation
APIs to automate the management of vSphere tags.
vSphere Supervisor
Starting with vSphere 7.0, you can enable
vSphere Supervisor
on an existing vSphere cluster in your environment. Create and configure namespaces on the
Supervisors
to run Kubernetes workloads in dedicated resource pools.