Exploring VMware vSphere 5

The VMware vSphere product suite is a comprehensive collection of products and features that together provide a full array of enterprise virtualization functionality. The vSphere product suite includes the following products and features:

• VMware ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server
• vSphere Update Manager
• VMware vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client
• VMware vShield Zones
• VMware vCenter Orchestrator
• vSphere Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing
• vSphere vMotion and Storage vMotion
• vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler
• vSphere Storage DRS
• Storage I/O Control and Network I/O Control
• Profile-Driven Storage
• vSphere High Availability
• vSphere Fault Tolerance
• vSphere Storage APIs for Data Protection and VMware Data Recovery

Rather than waiting to introduce these products and features in their own chapters, I'll introduce each product or feature in the following sections. This will allow me to explain how each product or feature affects the design, installation, and configuration of your virtual infrastructure. After I cover the features and products in the vSphere suite, you'll have a better grasp of how each of them fits into the design and the big picture of virtualization.