VMware Cloud Director is a platform for creating software-defined virtual data centers. More specifically, physical data centers are converted into a shared pool of computing resources, which customers use to obtain the required amount of capacity according to different distribution and consumption models. vCloud Director deals with the logical pooling of resources, their allocation, and provisioning to the end users.
What is vCloud
A group of products used to build cloud infrastructure - IaaS. That is, they allow providers to deliver multiple virtual servers with pre-installed services. The client selects the amount of resources – CPU cores, RAM, disk space, etc.
The two main components of vCloud are VMware vSphere and vCloud Director.
VMware vSphere is the virtualization platform where the cloud infrastructure services are deployed. vCloud Director is the management center of the infrastructure. The administration of cloud services is performed here.
What is vCloud Director?
It is a platform for creating virtual machines, and networks, and making all the necessary cloud settings for each client. vCloud Director simplifies working with the cloud, makes the company's entire infrastructure visible, and allows customers to automate standard tasks.
IaaS is a multi-tenant service. A vCD-based cloud provides a logical security boundary, giving providers the ability to create isolated containers. One cloud tenant – one container.
There are three types of users in vCloud:
- Infrastructure Administrator;
- Pool Administrator;
- User.
The Infrastructure Administrator manages the entire infrastructure. He has full access to vSphere and establishes different access rights levels.
Pool administrators are assigned rights within that part of the resources, which are allocated for the needs of a particular company.
The user gets resources in the virtual infrastructure, where to deploy services or take ready-made options from the provider.
vCloud Director features
- Secure virtual servers. Customers are provided with fully isolated virtual resources, role-based authentication, and full control over their public cloud services.
- Multiple environment management. Data centers are distributed across different environments and regions; single monitoring, the ability to connect to dedicated vCenter resources for management, and access to vCDs.
- Disaster recovery. Protect workloads and rapidly restore processes and cloud services after a disaster in the primary data center.
- Easy migration. Fast cold or hot migrations to vCloud Director without the need for complex architecture or network and security changes.
- Security in the cloud. Use the NSX-T distributed firewall to protect the traffic. You can encrypt workloads and deploy NSX Intelligence intrusion detection and prevention systems. Data is also protected with built-in replication capabilities.
