The VMware vSphere environment is composed of vSphere, ESX, and vCenter Server products. The Oracle vSphere Plug-In for Oracle Flash Storage Systems allows management integration with those products.
The Oracle vSphere Plug-In for Oracle Flash Storage Systems interacts with the following vSphere products:
- VMware ESX and VMware ESXi
- A virtualization layer run on physical servers that abstracts the physical processor, the memory, the storage, and the other resources into logical resources that are then presented as multiple VMs. The physical machine becomes the host for the VMs. The physical machine is thereafter referred to as a VM host or ESX host.
Note: Two versions of ESX are available, ESX and ESXi. Throughout this document, the term ESX applies to both ESX and ESXi.
- VMware vCenter Server
- A single Windows service that performs administrative functions for the ESX hosts that are connected on a network. The vCenter Server directs the actions on the VMs and the VM hosts (ESX hosts).
Here are characteristics of vCenter Server:
The vCenter Server is installed to run automatically.
The vCenter Server runs continuously in the background, performing its monitoring and managing activities.
The vCenter Server runs even when no vSphere Clients are connected, and even if nobody is logged on to the computer where the vCenter Server resides
The vCenter Server must have network access to all the hosts it manages and be available for network access from any machine where the vSphere Client is run.
Multiple vCenter Server systems can be joined together using Linked Mode to allow them to be managed using a single vSphere Client connection.
- VMware vSphere Client
- The interface to vCenter Server, ESX hosts, and the VMs. The vSphere Client is installed on a Windows machine with network access to the vCenter Server system installation. While all vCenter Server activities are performed by a vCenter Server system, the administrator uses the vSphere Client to monitor, manage, and control the server.
- A single vCenter Server system can support multiple, simultaneously‑connected vSphere Clients.
For more information about vCenter Server and vSphere, refer to the VMware Documentation (http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/).