What is in the vSphere Extension APIs

The vSphere SDK provides a set of APIs that you can use to register extensions with
vCenter Server
. To develop vSphere extensions, the most important object in the vSphere Extension API is the
ExtensionManager
managed object.
Use the
ExtensionManager
managed object in your
vCenter Server
instance to register a new extension. Extensions can add new objects to the vCenter inventory. Extensions define tasks, events, and faults that relate to actions that the solution performs on the objects, the events that occur in the extension, and the problems that the objects encounter. You can also use
ExtensionManager
to add user interface elements to the
vSphere Client
to allow users to interact with the objects that your extension provides to
vCenter Server
.
vCenter Server
extensions can have both a client and a server component, or they can consist of just a client component or just a server component. Each instance of an extension is represented by an
Extension
data object.
You can indicate that an extension manages the virtual machines or vApps that it creates by setting the
managedBy
property in the
ManagedEntityInfo
data object for that virtual machine or vApp. When you register an extension with
vCenter Server
, you can define an icon that represents the virtual machines that the extension manages. Virtual machines that an extension manages display the icon that you define in the inventory of virtual machines in the
vSphere Client
. The
vCenter Server
shows a warning if users try to perform manual operations on a virtual machine or vApp that the extension manages.
ExtensionManager
adds data objects to the vSphere Extension APIs that integrate extensions as vCenter solutions that you can manage.
For information about how to develop
vSphere Client
extensions, see the
Developing Remote Plug-ins with the vSphere Client SDK
documentation.
For information about developing vSphere applications, see the
vSphere Web Services SDK Programming Guide
and the
VMware vSphere API Reference
documentation.