Tags and attributes allow you to attach metadata to objects in the vSphere inventory to make it easier to sort and search for these objects.

A tag is a label that you can apply to objects in the vSphere inventory. When you create a tag, you assign that tag to a category. Categories allow you to group related tags together. When you define a category, you can specify the object types for its tags, and whether more than one tag in the category can be applied to an object.

For example, if you wanted to tag your virtual machines by guest operating system type, you can create a category called operating system. You can specify that it applies to virtual machines only and that only a single tag can be applied to a virtual machine at any time. The tags in this category might be Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.

Tags and categories can span multiple vCenter Server instances:

  • If multiple on-premises vCenter Server instances are configured to use Enhanced Linked Mode, tags and tag categories are replicated across all these vCenter Server instances.
  • When you use Hybrid Linked Mode, tags and tag categories are maintained across your linked domain. That means the on-premises SDDC and the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC share tags and tag attributes.

For vSphere Tags and Attributes, VMware Cloud on AWS supports the same set of tasks as an on-premises SDDC.