Web Services API as a Web Service

The vSphere Web Services API is a language-neutral Web service that runs on ESXi hosts and vCenter Server systems.

The API complies with the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) Basic Profile 1.0. The WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 includes support for the following standards:

• XML Schema 1.0
• SOAP 1.1
• WSDL 1.1

For information about the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0, go to the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) Web site at http://ws-i.org.

Web services employ operations, which are the same as methods in other programming languages. The vSphere API Web Service provides access to most operations necessary for monitoring and managing vSphere components, such as compute resources, virtual machines, networks, storage, and so on.