vSphere/vCenter client and the web services

[ChaitanyaS]

Hi,

Does vSphere client (or vCenter client earlier) invoke the vSphere web services internally to perform any operations on the ESX server?

I'm novice to VMware developemnt.

What i understand is vSphere or vCenter client is a management console. An actioan/operations like creating VM or cloning images actually happen on the ESX servers or hosts. Web services are hosted on the ESX servers. When we perform an action through vSphere/vCenter client (e.g. create virtual machine), internally it would be invoking appropriate API provided by the web service SDKto do the needful.

Is my understanding correct?

[lamw · Accepted solution]

Whether you're connecting to vCenter or ESX(i) host themselves using the vSphere Client, majority of the requests are using vSphere API .... I say majority since I'm sure there are some undocumented ones that VMware is using behind the scene but in general, this is true. If you're performing an operation within vCenter and it applies to a host, vCenter will communicate that request to the host.

If you're new to APsI/SDK's: You may want to spend some time going into the 'Learning' section of the developer forums, there's lots of helpful information there: http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/learn

Here is a great doc that has lots of information/explanation on how all this works, you should spend time going over it and then ask any follow up questions in the appropriate forums if you need further explanation.

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William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

VMware Developer Comuunity

Twitter: @lamw

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[ChaitanyaS]

Thank you very much for references.