vSphere 5.5 vCenter Server Components and Support Tools

VMware vCenter Server

Windows service to manage ESXi and legacy ESX hosts.

vCenter Single Sign-On The vCenter Single Sign-On authentication service makes the VMware cloud

infrastructure platform more secure by allowing the various vSphere

software components to communicate with each other through a secure

token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to

authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory.

Available and required with vCenter Server 5.1.

vCenter Inventory

Service

Inventory Service stores vCenter Server application and inventory data,

enabling you to search and access inventory objects across linked vCenter

Servers.

Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1

Framework

Software used by the Database Upgrade wizard and the vSphere Web Client.

Also used by vCenter Server if you are using the bundled database. If it is

not installed on your system, the vCenter Server installer installs it.

Microsoft Windows

Installer version 4.5

If you plan to use the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express database that is

bundled with vCenter Server, Microsoft Windows Installer version 4.5 (MSI

4.5) is required on your system. You can also install MSI 4.5 directly from the

vCenter Server autorun.exe installer.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator

vCenter Server module that provides a set of tools to manage your virtual IT

environment. vCenter Orchestrator module is not supported on IPv6-only

operating systems. If you install vCenter Server in a mixed environment

(both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled), the vCenter Orchestrator module can be

configured using IPv4. See the Administering vCenter Orchestrator. This

component is installed automatically with vCenter Server.

Microsoft SQL Server

2008 R2 Express

(optional)

Free, bundled version of the Microsoft SQL Server database for smaller scale

applications. If you choose to use an existing database, the installer does not

install the bundled database.

vSphere Web Client Server 

application that you can use to manage an ESXi host by Web browser

through a vCenter Server.

vSphere Update Manager

vCenter Server component that provides security monitoring and patching

support for hosts and virtual machines.

vSphere ESXi DumpCollector

vCenter Server support tool. You can configure ESXi to dump the vmkernel

memory to a network server, rather than to a disk, when the system has

encountered a critical failure. The Dump Collector collects such memory

dumps over the network.

vSphere Syslog Collector 

vCenter Server support tool that provides a unified architecture for system

logging and enables network logging and combining of logs from multiple

hosts.

vSphere Auto Deploy

vCenter Server support tool that can provision hundreds of physical hosts

with ESXi software. You can specify the image to deploy and the hosts to

provision with the image. Optionally, you can specify host profiles to apply

to the hosts, and a vCenter Server location (folder or cluster) for each host.

vSphere Authentication Proxy

vCenter Server support tool that enables ESXi hosts to join a domain without

using Active Directory credentials. This tool enhances security for PXEbooted

hosts and hosts that are provisioned using Auto Deploy, by removing

the need to store Active Directory credentials in the host configuration.