Platform Services Controller Capabilities

Platform Services Controller supports services such as identity management, certificate management, and license management in vSphere.

Key Capabilities

Platform Services Controller includes several services, discussed in Platform Services Controller Services, and has the following key capabilities.

• Authentication through vCenter Single Sign-On
• Provisioning of vCenter Server components and ESXi hosts with VMware Certificate Manager (VMCA) certificates by default
• Use of custom certificates, which are stored in the VMware Endpoint Certificate Store (VECS)

Deployment Models

You can install Platform Services Controller on a Windows system or deploy the Platform Services Controller appliance.

The deployment model depends on the version of Platform Services Controller that you are using. See vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller Deployment Types.

Starting with vSphere 6.7 Update 1, if you have deployed or installed a vCenter Server instance with an external Platform Services Controller and you want to convert it to a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services Controller, you can replicate a new Platform Services Controller that is embedded within the existing vCenter Server instance. See the vCenter Server Installation and Setup documentation.

Starting with vSphere 6.7 Update 1, you can move a vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller from one vSphere domain to another vSphere domain. Services such as tagging and licensing are retained and migrated to the new domain. See the vCenter Server Installation and Setup documentation.