vSphere Resource Management describes resource management for VMware® ESXi and vCenter® Server environments.

This documentation focuses on the following topics.

  • Resource allocation and resource management concepts
  • Virtual machine attributes and admission control
  • Resource pools and how to manage them
  • Clusters, vSphere® Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere Distributed Power Management (DPM), and how to work with them
  • Datastore clusters, Storage DRS, Storage I/O Control, and how to work with them
  • Advanced resource management options
  • Performance considerations

Intended Audience

This information is for system administrators who want to understand how the system manages resources and how they can customize the default behavior. It’s also essential for anyone who wants to understand and use resource pools, clusters, DRS, datastore clusters, Storage DRS, Storage I/O Control, or vSphere DPM.

This documentation assumes you have a working knowledge of VMware ESXi and of vCenter  Server.

Note: In this document, "Memory" can refer to physical RAM or Persistent Memory.

vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client

Instructions in this guide reflect the vSphere Client (an HTML5-based GUI). You can also use the instructions to perform the tasks by using the vSphere Web Client (a Flex-based GUI).

Tasks for which the workflow differs significantly between the vSphere Client and the vSphere Web Client have duplicate procedures that provide steps according to the respective client interface. The procedures that relate to the vSphere Web Client, contain vSphere Web Client in the title.

Note: In vSphere 6.7 Update 1, almost all of the vSphere Web Client functionality is implemented in the vSphere Client. For an up-to-date list of any remaining unsupported functionality, see Functionality Updates for the vSphere Client.
Note: In vSphere 6.7 U1, you can install and use the VMware AppDefense plug-in to protect your applications and ensure endpoint security. The AppDefense plug-in becomes available with the VMware vSphere Platinum license. If you have the vSphere Platinum license, the AppDefense panel appears on the Summary tab for any virtual machine in your inventory. From that panel, you can install, upgrade, or view details about the AppDefense plug-in. For more information about VMware AppDefense, see the AppDefense documentation.