VCP-DCV key terms

A Type 1 hypervisor that installs directly on physical server hardware and runs virtual machines. It manages CPU, memory, storage, and network resources and provides the foundation for a vSphere data center.

The centralized management platform for vSphere. It provides inventory, authentication, permissions, alarms, scheduling, and cluster services, and it manages ESXi hosts and virtual machines through a single interface and API.

A group of ESXi hosts managed together by vCenter Server. Clusters enable vMotion, DRS, HA, and other features that pool compute and memory resources and provide availability across hosts.

A vSphere feature that moves a running virtual machine's compute state from one ESXi host to another with minimal downtime. It requires shared storage or storage migration and compatible CPU features across hosts.

Distributed Resource Scheduler balances virtual machine workloads across hosts in a cluster by using vMotion. It can automatically place VMs at power-on and migrate them to reduce CPU and memory contention according to configured automation levels.

vSphere High Availability restarts virtual machines on surviving hosts after an ESXi host or VM failure. It uses admission control to reserve cluster capacity and heartbeat mechanisms to detect failures.

A vSphere feature that runs a primary and secondary copy of a virtual machine on separate hosts. If the primary host fails, the secondary takes over immediately with no interruption, preserving the VM's running state.

A virtual switch managed centrally at the vCenter Server level and shared by multiple ESXi hosts. It provides consistent networking, private VLANs, traffic shaping, and Network I/O Control across a cluster.

A specialized virtual network interface on an ESXi host that handles host-level traffic such as management, vMotion, storage, Fault Tolerance, and vSAN. Each adapter needs an IP address and an associated port group.

A logical grouping of virtual switch ports that applies consistent network policy, VLAN settings, and security rules. Virtual machines and VMkernel adapters connect to a port group to gain network access.

A logical storage container that ESXi hosts use to store virtual machine files, templates, and ISO images. It can be backed by VMFS, NFS, vSAN, or other supported storage technologies.

VMware's clustered file system for block storage. Multiple ESXi hosts can access the same VMFS datastore concurrently, which supports vMotion, HA, and shared virtual machine storage.

A software-defined storage solution built into ESXi that pools local disks across hosts in a cluster. It provides a shared datastore with policy-based availability, performance, and capacity management.

A hierarchical container in a cluster that divides CPU and memory resources among groups of virtual machines. Resource pools use shares, reservations, and limits to control how resources are allocated.

Three resource allocation controls. Shares set relative priority during contention, reservations guarantee a minimum amount, and limits cap the maximum amount a virtual machine or resource pool can consume.

A policy that reserves cluster capacity so that HA can restart virtual machines after host failures. It can use a percentage of cluster resources, a number of host failures, or dedicated failover hosts.

A cluster-level feature that balances storage capacity and I/O latency across datastores by migrating virtual machine disks with Storage vMotion. It can automate initial placement and ongoing datastore load balancing.

A group of datastores managed together by Storage DRS. It presents a single storage resource for placement decisions and lets Storage DRS move virtual machine disks to balance space and I/O load.

Network I/O Control manages bandwidth allocation on a vSphere Distributed Switch. It uses shares, reservations, and limits to prioritize traffic such as vMotion, management, storage, and virtual machine network traffic during contention.

Storage I/O Control enforces I/O shares for virtual machines accessing a datastore when latency exceeds a threshold. It helps prevent a single workload from monopolizing shared storage throughput.

The Pluggable Storage Architecture is ESXi's modular storage framework. It allows VMware or third-party multipathing plugins to manage path selection and failover between storage arrays and ESXi hosts.

A point-in-time state of a virtual machine that preserves disk and memory state, allowing rollback after changes or failures. Snapshots are not backups and can reduce performance if retained too long.

A version number that defines the virtual machine's available virtual hardware features and devices. It determines compatibility with ESXi versions and must be upgraded to enable newer capabilities.

A suite of drivers and utilities installed in a guest operating system that improves performance and management. It enables graceful shutdown, quiesced snapshots, time synchronization, and better display and network drivers.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager manages ESXi host images and firmware from vCenter Server. It uses desired-state cluster images and hardware support manager plugins to remediate hosts consistently and reduce configuration drift.

The vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual appliance that runs vCenter Server and its supporting services. It is deployed from an ISO or OVA and replaces the deprecated Windows-based vCenter Server.

A vSphere feature that replicates virtual machines from a source site to a target site at the hypervisor level. It supports recovery point objectives and works with Site Recovery Manager for orchestrated failover.

Site Recovery Manager automates disaster recovery by orchestrating recovery plans that use vSphere Replication or array-based replication. It tests failover non-disruptively and coordinates power-on, IP customization, and dependency order.

A vCenter Server template that captures an ESXi host's configuration, such as networking, storage, security, and advanced settings. Applying a host profile enforces consistent configuration and can check compliance across hosts.

vCenter Single Sign-On provides authentication and single sign-on across vSphere components. It validates user credentials against identity sources and issues tokens that other services trust, simplifying access management.

A directory or authentication service that vCenter Single Sign-On uses to validate user and group credentials. Examples include Active Directory over LDAP, native AD, and local SSO users.

A role is a set of privileges, and a permission assigns that role to a user or group on an inventory object. Permissions can be inherited down the vCenter inventory hierarchy.

vSphere metadata used to classify inventory objects. A category defines allowed tag values, and tags can be assigned to VMs, hosts, datastores, or networks for filtering, reporting, and policy-based automation.

A centralized repository in vCenter Server for templates, ISO images, scripts, and other files. Libraries can be local or subscribed, and they simplify consistent deployment across vCenter instances and sites.

A vSphere feature that provisions ESXi hosts over the network by booting them from an image profile. It uses rules to assign host profiles and can statelessly or statefully deploy many hosts quickly.

A command-line interface for managing and troubleshooting ESXi hosts. It provides namespaces for networking, storage, hardware, and system settings, and it is often used when the vSphere Client is unavailable.

A notification rule in vCenter Server that triggers on defined conditions, such as host connectivity loss, datastore capacity, or VM resource usage. Alarms can send email, run scripts, or perform remedial actions.

A collected set of logs and diagnostic data from ESXi hosts or vCenter Server, used by VMware support and administrators. It includes system logs, configuration files, and performance data for troubleshooting.

Distributed Power Management is a DRS feature that powers off ESXi hosts during low demand and powers them back on when needed. It reduces power consumption while preserving cluster capacity and availability policies.

A memory reclamation technique in which a guest driver inflates a balloon to force the guest to release unused pages. The hypervisor can then reuse that physical memory for other virtual machines.