When I went through my Install, Manage, Configure(ICM) course, container objects was a concept that took me a while to wrap my head around. The ideas of what object can contain another, along with the difference in features between containers…I guess there was just a lot of facts to get straight.

So I made a chart of which containers can contain what objects/containers. Afterward I have a short description of features for each container object.

Objects Below Can Contain->>> Folder Datacenter Cluster Host vApp Resource Pool VM
Folder

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Datacenter

X

X

X

X
Cluster

X

X

X

X

Host

X

X

X

vApp

X

X

X

ResourcePool

X

X

X

*This table is true for DRS enabled Clusters

Folders: Can contain any object, or groups of objects.

  • Allows for logical organization of objects based upon any desired criteria
  • Permissions and alarms can be defined for contained objects

Datacenters: For most intents and purposes, this is the root of an environment. Hosts, clusters, VMs, vApps, and Resource Pools all aggregate to a datacenter.

  • IP Pools(DNS, DHCP, IP Ranges)
  • Only Object to appear in all views(Host and Cluster, VM and Templates, Datastores, Networking), besides the vCenter Server 🙂

Clusters: Groups of hosts used for collective resources management.

  • High Availability
  • Distributed Resource Scheduler

Resource Pool: Manages allocated resources to child objects

  • VMs use memory and CPU that has been allocated to the Resource Pool
  • Limits, Shares and Expandable Reservations

vApp: Is a hybrid between a VM and a Resource Pool.

  • Can be migrated, turned on/off
  • VMs use memory and CPU that has been allocated to the vApp
  • IP Pools(DNS, DHCP, IP Ranges)
  • Designate start(boot) order for child objects
  • Limits, Shares and Expandable Reservations

This is in no way an exhaustive list of all the features and options that these containers are capable of performing. They are simply some of the more prominent features(in my mind).

For more information about this topic, either feel free to ask in the comments or consult VMware’s Datacenter Admin Guide.

As always please leave a comment and let me know what you think!!

Categories: vCenter

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