In ESX 2.x, a disk mode in which all write operations that are issued by software running inside the virtual machines appear to be written to the disk, but, in fact, are stored in a temporary file (.REDO) for the duration of the session. When the virtual machine is powered off, the user has these choices; permently apply all changes to the disk; discard the changes, and restore the disk to its previous state; or keep the changes from further changes from future sessions can be added to the log

A step in an ACE instance setup that includes package protection and the setup of the ACE instance’s runtime authentication policy. Complete the activation to make the packaged virtual machine, with its policies and other settings, into an ACE instance.

A global setting that provides password protection for Windows hosts. Administrative lockout restricts users from creating new virtual machines, editing virtual machine configurations, and changing network settings.

When you power on a virtual machine, the system checks the amount of CPU and whether memory resources are reserved. Based on the available unreserved resources, the system determines whether it can guarantee the Reservation for which the virtual machine is configured.

An entity that monitors one or more properties of a virtual machine, such as CPU load. Alarms send notifications as directed by the configurable alarm definition.

In Capacity Planner, an indicator that server performance is significantly different from the industry performance averages of like servers. Capacity Planner notes an anomaly when it detects performance that is more than three standard deviations from the industry average.

In ESX Server 2.x, a disk mode in which software running in the virtual machine appears to write changes to the disk. Changes are stored in a temporary .REDO file. If a system administrator deletes the redo-log file, the virtual machine returns to the state it was in the last time it was used in persistent mode.  

Replication of a virtual machine that is managed and executed by the storage subsystem rather than from inside the virtual machine, the VMkernel, or the service console.

In GSX and Workstation, a process that handles blocking system calls for asynchronous I/O, or

nonblocking I/O. AIO is a form of input and output processing that permits other processing to continue before the transmission finishes.

A set of privileges grouped for convenient

identification under names such as Administrator.

The original virtual hard disk from which a virtual machine is derived. Virtual machines created by linked clones in Lab Manager consist of a base disk and chain of delta disks that store the changes made to the original. This process addresses the potential disk consumption difficulties that can occur with virtual machine proliferation.

Ability of a host to load its operating system over a storage area network (SAN). The boot image is stored on a remote storage array, rather than on a disk directly attached to the system. Diskless servers require the use of boot from SAN technology.

In hosted products, a type of network connection between a virtual machine and the host’s physical

network. With bridged networking, a virtual machine appears to be an additional computer on the same physical Ethernet network as the host.

A component that stores class definitions and populates requests for CIM operations with information returned from specific data providers.

n.) A duplicate of a virtual machine. (v.) To make a copy of a virtual machine. Hosted products distinguish between full clones and linked clones.

In VMware vCenter Converter, cloning a local physical machine while it is running in WinPE from the vCenter Converter Boot CD, not from its own operating system.

A managed object that represents either a single host or a cluster of hosts available for backing up virtual machines.

vCenter Server compares the CPU features available to a virtual machine with the CPU features of the destination host to determine whether to allow or disallow migrations with VMotion. By applying CPU compatibility masks to virtual machines, you can hide certain CPU features from the virtual machine and potentially prevent migrations with VMotion from failing due to incompatible CPUs.

In hosted products, any type of network connection between virtual machines and the host that does not use the default bridged, host-only, or network address translation (NAT) configurations. For example, virtual machines can be connected to the host by separate networks or connected to each other and not to the host.

A required structure under which hosts and their associated virtual machines are added to vCenter Server. vCenter Server supports multiple datacenters. A host can be managed under only one datacenter.

An optional inventory grouping structure contained within the datacenter structure. vCenter Server supports multiple datacenter folders. Datacenter folders can contain only datacenters and other datacenter folders.

An Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) object that you must configure to enable vCenter Server to access a database.

Virtual representations of combinations of underlying physical storage resources in the datacenter. A datastore is the storage location (for example, a physical disk, a RAID, or a SAN) for virtual machine files.

Differencing disk created during the cloning process. A virtual machine created as a linked clone consists of a base disk, plus a chain of one or more delta disks that store the differences between the cloned virtual machine and the original virtual machine.

In ACE, a set of rules and settings associated with a package, such as Revert to Installed and Instance Customization settings. The only way to change package settings is to create a package.

In ACE, a set of rules and settings associated with a package, such as Revert to Installed and Instance Customization settings. The only way to change package settings is to create a package.

disk arrays

Groups of multiple disk devices that make up the typical SAN disk storage device. These arrays vary in design, capacity, performance, and other features.

A property of a virtual disk that defines its external behavior (how the virtualization layer treats its data). The disk mode is invisible to the guest operating system. Available modes vary by product.

A port on a vDS that connects to a host’s service console or VMkernel or to a virtual machine’s network adapter.

A port group associated with a vDS. The port group specifies port configuration options for each member port. A dvPort group defines how a connection is made through the vDS to the network.

The act of discovering resources available in a virtual machine environment. In particular, discovering all resources of a given type or a list of resources discovered by enumeration.

An action that is of interest to vCenter Server. Each event triggers an event message. Event messages are archived in the vCenter Server database.

A Fibre Channel network topology in which devices pass data to each other through interconnecting switches. A fabric is used in many SANs. Fabrics are typically divided into zones. Also called switched fabric or Fibre Channel fabric.

A list in the main VMware Workstation window that shows the names of virtual machines that a user has added. Use the Favorites list to start a virtual machine or to connect to the configuration file and make changes in the virtual machine settings.

A storage mechanism that speeds access to files stored on a disk by caching frequently accessed data. The maximum disk cache for 32-bit operating systems is 512MB; for 64-bit operating systems, the maximum is 1TB. All platforms use file system caches for improved performance.

To forcefully delete a virtual machine when an ESX host failure prevents the Lab Manager administrator from deleting the virtual machine.

To forcefully undeploy a virtual machine after situations such as when an ESX host goes permanently offline or someone manually removes a virtual machine from the vCenter inventory.

A display mode in which the virtual machine’s display fills the entire screen. The user cannot create, reconfigure, or start virtual machines. A system administrator performs those functions.

A process that backs up all files that make up the entire virtual machine. These files include disk

images, .VMX files and so on.

A type of virtual disk in which the disk space is not preallocated to its full size. The disk files begin small and increase as data is written to the disk.

An unauthenticated user who can log in to a system with a temporary user name and password. A guest user has restricted access to files and folders and has a set of restricted permissions.

A temporary token used by a Web service client to invoke Web service operations that require a reference to an object. Like a file handle, an object handle is a temporary handle that always refers to the same object.

Describes a program that runs in the background without any interface connected to it. A running virtual machine that has no console connections is running headless.

A computer that uses virtualization software to run virtual machines. Also called the host machine or host computer. The physical computer on which the virtualization (or other) software is installed.

The physical computer on which VMware Player software is installed. The host computer hosts the ACE instances.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, one of two modes for licensing ESX/ESXi software. License files reside on the host. Feature availability is tied strictly to the host on which the file resides.

The physical computer on which the VMware Workstation software is installed. The hosted machine hosts the VMware Workstation virtual machines.

VMware products (including Workstation, VMware Player, VMware Server, VMware ACE, and Lab Manager) that run as applications on physical machines with operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Linux.

In hosted products, a type of network connection between a virtual machine and the host. With host-only networking, a virtual machine is connected to the host on a private network, which normally is not visible

outside the host. Multiple virtual machines configured with host-only networking on the same host are on the same network.

In VMware vCenter Converter, cloning a local or remote physical machine while it is running in its own operating system.

An installable file that resets a user’s password, renews an expired virtual machine, or enables a copyprotected virtual machine to run from a new location.

A technology that allows a single physical processor to behave like two logical processors. The processor can run two independent applications at the same time.

The standard profile that the VMware Migration Server adapts to describe ESX/ESXi server. The CIM SDK version 2 is based on the IBVP.

A process that backs up only those files that have changed since the last backup, whether it is a full or incremental backup.

A type of virtual disk that is not affected by snapshots. You can configure independent disks in persistent and nonpersistent modes.

The process of customizing an ACE instance to make it unique from all other instances. The instance customization process automates the actions of the Microsoft sysprep utility. It also provides the ACE administrator with features needed to set up an automated remote domain join process of the ACE instance to a company VPN network.

A hierarchical structure used by the vCenter Server or the host agent to organize the entities or objects that it manages. This hierarchy is a list of all the managed objects in vCenter Server.

Mapping between resource pools, networks, and virtual machine folders on the protection site and their destination counterparts on the recovery site.

In ESX/ESXi, any form of storage that uses TCP/IP network communication as its foundation. Both Network File System (NFS) and iSCSI storage can be used as virtual machine datastores. NFS can also be used for direct mounting of .ISO files for presentation to virtual machines as CD-ROM discs.

A virtual machine supported by the product in use but not current for that product. For example, in Workstation 5, you can create virtual machines for use in Workstation 4.x, GSX Server 3.x, or ESX Server 2.x. New Workstation 5 features (such as clones, multiple snapshots, and teams) are not compatible with the legacy virtual machines.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, a unique code associated with one or more VMware products purchased. You receive this code after your order is processed. If you purchase your products from a VMware partner, you receive your license activation code after you register your partner activation code for your VMware

account.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, an encrypted block of text within a license file, determining entitlement to one specific licensed feature.

In vSphere 4.0, a product license encapsulated in 25 characters. You can manage and monitor license keys from vCenter Server 4.0.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, the method used for licensing VMware software. A license file can be located on an ESX/ESXi host or on a license server. vCenter Server uses server-based licensing. ESX/ESXi server licensing can be server-based or host-based at the option of the system administrator.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, a self-service Web portal that you can use to redeem your license activation codes and download license files for VMware Infrastructure 3.

A copy of the original virtual machine. The copy must have access to the parent virtual machine’s virtual disks. The linked clone stores changes to the virtual disks in a separate set of files.

The process of making a copy of a virtual machine residing in the system on which VMware vCenter Converter is running, or making a copy of the physical machine itself for conversion to a virtual machine.

A process that is used for permission management to make a LUN available to some hosts and not to other hosts. Also referred to as Selective Storage Presentation, access control, and partitioning, depending on

the vendor.

An object that resides on a server and is passed between the client and the Web service only by reference. A managed object has operations associated with it but might not have properties.

The process of moving a virtual machine between hosts. Unless vMotion is used, the virtual machine must be powered off when you migrate it.

The process of moving a virtual machine that is powered on and meets selected requirements, including the activation of vMotion on both the source and target hosts. When you migrate a virtual machine using vMotion, the operations of the virtual machine can continue without interruption.

The process of moving a powered off virtual machine from a local or remote host, while reconfiguring the file format, if necessary, to accommodate the destination machine.

In hosted networking, a type of network connection that enables you to connect your virtual machines to an external network when you have only one IP network address and the host computer uses that address. The VMware NAT device passes network data between one or more virtual machines and the external

network. It identifies incoming data packets intended for each virtual machine and sends them to the correct destination.

Policies that give you detailed and flexible control over the network access you can provide to users of your ACE instances. Using a packet filtering firewall, the network access feature lets you specify exactly which machines or subnets an ACE instance or its host system may access.

A set of controls, governed by policies, that ensure only up-to-date virtual machines have access to specified resources on an organization’s network. These controls enable administrators to specify which machines or subnets a virtual machine may access.

An expansion board that provides a dedicated connection between a computer and a network. Also called a network adapter.

The association of multiple NIC adapters with a single virtual switch to form a team. Such teams can provide passive failover and share traffic loads between members of physical and virtual networks.

A disk mode in which all disk writes that are issued by software running inside a virtual machine appear to be written to the independent disk. In fact, they are discarded after the virtual machine is powered off. As a result, a virtual disk or physical disk in independent-nonpersistent mode is not modified by activity in the virtual machine.

Amount of storage that is used only by a virtual machine and is not shared with other virtual machines. (This terms was formerly called unshared storage.) Also, the amount of guaranteed storage that can be reclaimed if a virtual machine is migrated out of a datastore or is deleted.

A packaging format for virtual machines that allows virtual machine templates to be distributed, customized, and instantiated on any OVA supporting VMM.

A distribution format for virtual appliances that uses existing packaging tools to combine one or more virtual machines with a standards-based XML wrapper. OVF gives the virtualization platform a portable package containing all required installation and configuration parameters for virtual machines. This

format allows any virtualization platform that implements the standard to correctly install and run virtual machines.

An installable bundle for distribution to end users. The package might include one or more virtual machines and an application used to run virtual machines.

A component of an operating system that provides virtual memory for the system. Recently used pages of memory are swapped out to this area on the disk to make room in physical memory (RAM) for newer memory pages. Also called a swap file.

Free virtual machines that are intended to demonstrate the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) for virtual machine hypervisors.

(1) The source virtual machine from which you take a snapshot or make a clone. If you delete the parent virtual machine, any snapshot becomes permanently disabled. (2) In a VMware vSphere inventory, the managed entity that immediately encloses a given entity (considered the child entity).

In VMware Infrastructure 3, a unique code identifying orders placed through VMware partners. The code lets you register your purchase and obtain a license activation code.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, a self-service Web portal used to register a purchase made from a VMware partner to your VMware store account. When you enter your partner activation code into the portal, you receive a license activation code.

In VMware vSphere, information collected about an entity (such as a host or virtual machine). Counter information includes the group to which the counter belongs (for example, memory), counter ID, counter name, key, statistic type, rollup type, and the kind of entity for which the counter is reported. CPU usage is an example of a performance counter.

A disk mode in which all disk writes that are issued by software running inside a virtual machine are immediately and permanently written to a virtual disk that is configured as an independent disk. As a result, a virtual disk or physical disk in independent-persistent mode behaves like a conventional disk drive on a physical computer.

In hosted products, a hard disk in a virtual machine that is mapped to a physical disk drive or partition on the host machine. A virtual machine’s disk can be stored as a file on the host file system or on a local hard disk. When a virtual machine is configured to use a physical disk, vCenter Server directly accesses the local disk or partition as a raw device (not as a file on a file system).

A network of physical machines (plus cabling, switches, routers, and so on) that are connected so that they can send data to and receive data from each other.

A file that contains an exact image of a raw disk. VMware plain disks can also concatenate more than one raw disk into a single plain disk.

An ACE feature that allows the ACE administrator to distribute an ACE instance on a removable device such as a USB key, Apple iPod mobile digital device, or portable hard drive.

A set of system-enforced rules that automatically run or inhibit actions upon entities such as virtual machines, processes, and users. Typically, a policy is configured and enforced in a hierarchical framework in which lower-level entities can inherit or override a policy set at a higher level.

A construct for configuring virtual network options such as bandwidth limitations and VLAN tagging policies for each member port. Virtual networks that are connected to the same port group share network policy configuration.

The process of disconnecting power from the computer and then adding power again. A power cycle generally has the effect of restarting the system.

A type of virtual disk in which all disk space for the virtual machine is allocated at the time the disk is created.

An operating and viewing mode in which an administrator can preview the ACE instance as it will run on the user’s machine. The administrator uses this feature to see the effects of policy and configuration settings without performing the packaging and deployment steps. The preview mode displays the working copy of the policies.

Authorization to perform a specific action or set of actions on a managed object or group of managed objects.

An attribute of an object. In the VMware vSphere SDK, a property can be a nested data object, a managed object reference, or other data such as an integer or string.

A managed object used to control the reporting of managed object properties and the primary means of monitoring status on host machines.

The process of creating a functioning virtual machine by assigning resources such as CPU, memory, and virtual hardware and then deploying a system image.

A display mode in which the virtual machine’s display fills most of the screen. In this mode, tabs at the top of the screen enable you to switch quickly from one running virtual machine to another.

A process of bringing the on-disk data of a physical or virtual computer into a state suitable for backups. This process might include flushing to disk dirty buffers from the operating systems in-memory cache or other higher level application-specific tasks.

A mechanism that enables a virtual machine to have direct access to a LUN on the physical storage subsystem (Fibre Channel or iSCSI only). At the same time, the virtual machine has access to the disk that is using a mapping file in the VMFS name space.

Lets you record all of a Workstation 5 or 6 virtual machine’s activity over a period of time. Unlike the Workstation movie-capture feature, the record/replay feature lets you duplicate the operations and state of the virtual machine throughout the time of the recording.

The steps to recover protected virtual machines in their assigned protection groups according to an order of priority defined in the plan.

recovery time objective

The datacenter containing the recovery virtual machines performing work while the protected site is unavailable.

A placeholder representing a protected virtual machine representing the virtual machines replicated from the protected site.

The file that stores changes made to a disk in all modes except the persistent and independent-persistent modes. For a disk in nonpersistent mode, the redo-log file is deleted when you power off or reset the virtual machine without writing any changes to the disk. You can permanently apply the changes saved in the redo-log file to a disk in undoable mode so that they become part of the main disk files.

A process for linked clones that involves storing new changes but referring back to a chain of delta disks. For each clone, Lab Manager freezes the original delta disk and creates a new one. A linked clone operation

generates a quick copy by creating a delta disk instead of copying an entire virtual hard disk.

Making a copy of a virtual machine or a physical machine accessed over the network by VMware vCenter Converter.

An interface that provides nonexclusive access to a virtual machine from the server on which the virtual machine is running and from workstations connected to that server.

A defined set of privileges that can be assigned to users and groups to control access to VMware vSphere objects.

The physical system location where the dynamic virtual environment runtime data is stored. Contents of the sandbox are tracked by the Virtual Operating System.

In a vCenter Server, an activity that is configured to occur at designated times. In VMware Converter, scheduled tasks consist of migrations and configurations of virtual machines.

(1) A system capable of managing and running virtual machines. (2) A process capable of accepting and running instructions from another process.

In VMware Infrastructure 3, a mode of licensing VMware software in which all license keys are

administered by a license server, which manages a central license pool. Feature entitlement is checked out and returned on demand.

The interface for ESX that enables administrators to configure the system. The service console is installed as the first component and used to bootstrap the ESX installation and configuration. The service console also boots the system and initiates starting the virtualization layer and resource manager. You can open the service console directly on an ESX host. If the ESX host’s configuration allows Telnet or SSH connections, you can also connect remotely to the service console.

In the VMware vSphere SDK, the managed entity that provides access to all other managed entities. Clients must access the service instance to begin a session.

A configuration value or rule that determines the behavior of a specific entity, such as an application feature, or set of entities, such as virtual machines or users. A setting applies only to the specified entities.

Amount of used storage minus the not-shared storage. Applies to virtual machines that can share storage with any other virtual machine, including linked clones.

To reclaim unused space in a virtual disk. If a disk has empty space, shrinking reduces the amount of space the virtual disk occupies on the host drive. Shrinking virtual disks is a way to update an older virtual disk to the format supported by the current version of vCenter Server. You cannot shrink preallocated

virtual disks or physical disks.

A unit of CPU and memory that can accommodate the CPU and memory reservation requirements of the largest virtual machine in your cluster. Spare capacity for failover is maintained on hosts in the cluster in slot sizes, so that any virtual machine in the cluster can fit in the slot size and be able to be failed over. The slot represents potential computing capacity on a node. A virtual machine can run in an empty slot in the event of failover.

A reproduction of the virtual machine just as it was when you took the snapshot, including the state of the data on all the virtual machine’s disks and the virtual machine’s power state (on, off, or suspended). You can take a snapshot when a virtual machine is powered on, powered off, or suspended. You can revert the configuration or virtual machine to a snapshot. If you undeploy a virtual machine and deploy it, the snapshot remains.

The comparison of the pre-installation and post-installation snapshots to determine what was changed on the packaging system.

A control that enables you to take actions on any of the snapshots associated with the selected virtual machine.

An ACE instance that is not managed by an ACE Management Server. Any changes to the instance’s policies or other settings are made by the administrator’s distribution of updates to the user.

The amount of time that an unused virtual machine template or configuration exists on a datastore before it is deleted or marked for deletion. This lease affects only unpublished virtual machine templates.

Device that aggregates capacity from multiple heterogeneous arrays and manages a logical representation of this capacity. Most of these devices can also have physical disks installed internally, which are presented to hosts as physical SAN LUNs that are not virtualized.

A local procedure that implements the client side of a remote procedure call. The client calls the stub to perform a task. The stub packages the parameters, sends them over the network to the server, and returns the results to the client.

A virtual disk partition that VMware Tools can prepare for shrinking, such as one of the drives that make up the virtual hard disk.

(n) A state in which settings are preserved and actions are no longer performed. (v) To turn off a virtual machine while preserving the current state of a running virtual machine.

When you power on a virtual machine, a process in which a corresponding swap file is created and placed in the same location as the virtual machine configuration file .(VMX file).

The virtual machine can power on only when the swap file is available. ESX/ESXi hosts use swapping to forcibly reclaim memory from a

virtual machine when no vmmemctl

driver is available.

A group of virtual machines configured to operate as one object. You can power on, power off, and suspend a team with one command. You can configure a team to communicate independently of any other virtual or real network by setting up a LAN segment.

A master image of a virtual machine. The template typically includes a specified operating system and a configuration that provides virtual counterparts to hardware components. Optionally, a template can

include an installed guest operating system and a set of applications. Templates are used by vCenter Server to create new virtual machines.

A list of virtual machines that provides a means to import and store virtual machines as templates. You can deploy the templates at a later time to create new virtual machines.

In VirtualCenter 1.x, a directory that stores copies of the original virtual machine's virtual disks. Copies of the original virtual machine’s virtual disks are placed in the directory you specify as the template upload directory. This directory is used when you create templates from virtual machines that are stored locally

on the VirtualCenter 1.x rather than on an ESX host or GSX Server system.

Amount of provisioned storage minus used storage. Uncommitted storage is a general term that can refer to unused physical capacity and unused logical capacity. Uncommitted storage includes unused logical capacity.

A virtual disk partition that VMware Tools cannot prepare for shrinking. Unsupported partitions include read-only drive partitions, partitions on remote devices, and partitions on removable devices.

Refers to used storage at the virtual machine or datastore level. (This term was formerly called committed storage.) At the virtual machine level, used storage refers to the space used by disks, swap, logs, cores, and so on.

In VMware Consolidated Backup, a physical or virtual machine running Microsoft Windows 2003, Consolidated Backup, and third-party backup software. VCB proxy is used to perform file-level and image-level virtual machine backups.

The means by which a user can perform a local cold clone of a physical machine. When the physical machine is booted from the vCenter Converter Boot CD, the Converter application runs on WinPE. It uses a RAM disk for its operations and leaves no footprint on the physical machine.

A persistent storage area for maintaining the status of each virtual machine and user that is managed in the vCenter Server environment. Located on the same machine as the vCenter Server.

An abstract representation of multiple hosts defining the same vSwitch (same name, same network policy) and port group. These representations explain the concept of a virtual machine being connected to the same network as it migrates among multiple hosts.

A reference to the specific memory state of an object at a certain time. A vHandle is an object handle that has a version number associated with it. The version number determines the specific memory state.

In Capacity Planner Dashboard, a server that does not meet minimum CPU speed requirements, as defined in the Dashboard consolidation scenarios by the Information Warehouse Administrator, company Administrator, or company Power User.

A software solution that is composed of one or more virtual machines. A virtual appliance is packaged as a unit by an appliance vendor and is deployed, managed, and maintained as a unit. Converting virtual appliances allows you to add preconfigured virtual machines to your vCenter Server, ESX/ESXi,Workstation, or Player inventory.

A file or set of files that appears as a physical disk drive to a guest operating system. These files can be on the host machine or on a remote file system.

The devices that make up a virtual machine. The virtual hardware includes the virtual disk, removable devices such as the DVD-ROM/CD-ROM and floppy drives, the virtual Ethernet adapter, and so on.

A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. Multiple virtual machines can operate on the same host system concurrently.

A set of virtual machines that can be operated on collectively. Currently called a VM Group or VM Folder in vCenter Server.

An infrastructure that provides communication between a virtual machine and the host operating system and between two or more virtual machines on the same host. The VMCI Sockets API facilitates development of applications that use the VMCI infrastructure.

The specification of which virtual devices, such as disks and memory, are present in a virtual machine and how they are mapped to host files and devices. In vCenter Converter, VMware virtual machines whose disks have been populated by restoring from a backup or by some other direct means of copying undergo configuration to enable them to boot in VMware products.

A file containing a virtual machine configuration. This .VMX file

is created when you create the virtual machine. It is used to identify and run a specific virtual machine.

An interface to a virtual machine within the larger Lab Manager Web console. Use the virtual machine console to run programs within it or modify guest operating system settings.

A file or set of files that appears as a physical disk drive to a guest operating system. These files can be on the host machine or on a remote file system.

An optional grouping structure and a subset of a farm. vCenter Server supports multiple virtual machine groups. Virtual machine groups contain virtual machines and other virtual machine groups.

A network connecting virtual machines that does not depend on physical hardware connections. For example, you can create a virtual network between a virtual machine and a host that has no external network connections. You can also create a LAN segment for communication between virtual machines on a team.

A virtualized network switch used by ESX/ESXi to manage traffic between virtual machines, the service console (ESX only), and the physical network adapters on the ESX/ESXi host.

A software-managed logical segmentation of a physical LAN. Network traffic within each segment is isolated from traffic in all other segments.

The VMware vCenter Server Web service that provides a Web services interface to enable client programs to talk to each other using the SOAP protocol.

A file system that is optimized for storing virtual machines. One VMFS partition is supported for each SCSI storage device or LUN.

In ESX/ESXi, a high-performance operating system that occupies the virtualization layer and manages most of the physical resources on the hardware, including memory, physical processors, storage, and networking controllers.

Software that is responsible for virtualizing the CPUs. One VMM runs in kernel space for each running virtual machine.

A component installed with VMware Tools that runs commands in the virtual machine, gracefully shuts down and resets the virtual machine, sends a heartbeat to VMware Migration Server, synchronizes the time of the guest operating system with the host operating system, and passes strings from the host

operating system to the guest operating system.

In VMware server, a Web-based management tool that enables you to control (start, suspend, resume, reset, and stop), configure, and monitor virtual machines and the server on which they run.

The service that manages connections to virtual machines and the management interface. This process is known as vmware-serverd.

An interface to a virtual machine that provides access to one or more virtual machines on the local host or a remote host running vCenter Server. You can view the virtual machine’s display to run programs within it or to modify guest operating system settings. You can also change the virtual machine’s configuration, install the guest operating system, or run the virtual machine in full screen mode.

An interface that provides access to one or more virtual machines on the local host or on a remote host running vCenter Server. You can view a virtual machine’s display to run programs within it, or you can modify guest operating system settings. You can also change the virtual machine’s configuration, install

the guest operating system, or run the virtual machine in full screen mode.

Centralized management of security policies and access rights applied to VMware ACE running on an end-user PC.

A entity that can be scheduled and that executes on an ESX Server. It is similar to a process or thread in a traditional operating system.

Provides access control in the SAN topology. Zoning defines which HBAs can connect to which storage processors. You can have multiple ports to the same storage processor in different zones to reduce the number of presented paths.