VMware Data Services Manager has four main components:
- Template Repository - For each new VMware Data Services Manager release, VMware publishes a set of VMware Data Services Manager Database Templates on Tanzu Network. VMware Data Services Manager periodically polls Tanzu Net for new and updated templates. (In an environment with no internet connectivity, the user is responsible for populating the templates in VMware Data Services Manager.) When a Provider Administrator user publishes a template, it becomes available for all VMware Data Services Manager users.
- Provider - An appliance deployed in the Service Provider's data center. The VMware Data Services Manager installation will include a single Provider instance, or 3-4 instances in Provider High Availability mode. The Provider provides the API gateway and user interface for all VMware Data Services Manager users in a hosted instance. It provides a central control plane that interacts with Agents installed in vSphere clusters or VMC clusters.
- Agent - An appliance in each vSphere cluster or VMC cluster that hosts data services created by VMware Data Services Manager. It provides a local control plane that is responsible for initiating operations on Service Instances deployed in the cluster. An Agent is part of a single vsphere cluster.
- Database - A Photon VM that hosts a data service created by a VMware Data Services Manager user. VMware Data Services Manager supports provisioning MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Each database is deployed in its Agent's cluster, and communicates with its Agent via a private API.
Note: The timestamps displayed in the VMware Data Services Manager console automatically display time in your local time zone for:
- DB operations
- Audit operations
- Creation time of log bundles
- Monitoring operations
- Alerts and Alarms
- Tasks, events, and updates (start and end time)
The Provider and Agent require access to certain external components to function completely and correctly:
- The Provider requires access to Tanzu Network, S3-compatible object storage, and an NTP service. You can optionally configure the Provider to access an LDAP server, SMTP server, and Elastic Search.
- The Agent requires access to the Provider, vCenter, S3-compatible object storage, an NTP service, and Telegraf (monitoring).
In the architecture diagram below, the Provider, Agent, and databases are all running in the same vSphere cluster or VMC cluster. VMware Data Services Manager also supports multi-cluster deployments as described in Deployment Models.
