This document introduces the basics of VMware vSphere, covering vSphere infrastructure, virtual machine management, networking and storage management, data protection, backup and high availability, and monitoring and logging.
VMware vSphere is a platform for virtualization and cloud infrastructure that aggregates physical hardware resources into pools of virtual resources. It uncouples applications from underlying hardware to improve flexibility and cost containment through server consolidation and automation.
The document covers the three main layers of the vSphere architecture: the Virtualization Layer (ESXi hosts), the Management Layer (vCenter Server), and the Interface Layer (vSphere Client). It details components such as clusters, resource pools, distributed services like DRS and HA, and network and storage architectures.
This information is intended for experienced Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and datacenter operations.
It allows one physical server to take on the work of many servers by incorporating multiple servers as virtual machines.