vSphere Automation SDK Overview

The vSphere Automation APIs provide a unified programming interface to vSphere Automation services that you can use through the SDKs provided for two programming languages. The vSphere Automation APIs provide a service-oriented architecture for accessing resources in the virtual environment by issuing requests to the vSphere Automation API endpoint.

Client applications use the vSphere Automation API to communicate with infrastructure and management vCenter Server services.

Figure 1. Communication Model Between a Client Application and the vSphere Automation API
A client application uses different services running on a vCenter Server instance to log in, authenticate, and manage the vSphere environment.

Client applications use the Lookup Service to retrieve the vCenter Single Sign-On endpoint, the vSphere Automation API endpoint, and the endpoints of services that are exposed through the VMware vSphere® API. To access vSphere Automation services such as those for managing content libraries and vSphere tags, client applications send requests to the vSphere Automation API endpoint. By using the vCenter Single Sign-On service, client applications can either establish an authenticated vSphere Automation session, or authenticate individual requests to the vSphere Automation API endpoint.

Client applications can access services that are exposed through the Web Services API by using the VMware vSphere ® Management SDK.

SDK Developer Setup

To start developing client applications that use the vSphere Automation API, you must download the desired SDK from the VMware GitHub Repository and set up your development environment. You can find instructions for setting up your development environment in the README file contained in each vSphere Automation SDK.

API Explorer

The API Explorer is a VMware utility similar to the Managed Object Browser (MOB). Use the utility through your Web browser to connect to the vSphere Automation API endpoint, browse through the available REST-based APIs, and make calls to your vCenter Server instance.

SDK Samples

The vSphere Automation SDKs provide code samples that demonstrate how the vSphere Automation APIs work and how they can be combined with the Web Services APIs. The code snippets included in this documentation are based on the samples in the vSphere Automation SDKs.