SDK Versions and VMware vSphere Product Compatibility

VMware has released SDK products to support various versions of the VMware vSphere product family. You can use the VMware vSphere Web Services SDK 6.5 with many previous versions of VMware vSphere servers and its predecessor, VMware Infrastructure, including:

■	ESX/ESXi 6.0, 5.5, 5.1, and 5.0

■	ESX/ESXi 4.1 and 4.0

■	ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 5

■	vCenter Server 6.0, 5.5, 5.1, 5.0, 4.1, 4.0

■	VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 5

All versions are supported by using the appropriate WSDL files, as follows:

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SDK\vsphere-ws\wsdl\vim25 contains WSDL files for use with ESXi 5, ESX/ESXi 4, vCenter Server 5, vCenter Server 4, ESX 3.5, and VirtualCenter 2.5 systems. As of vSphere 4.1, the vSphere API WSDL definitions are divided into several files. Backwards compatibility is achieved because both WSDL configurations (vim25 and vim directories) use a top level file with the same name (vimService.wsdl).

The VMware vSphere API is a Web service that runs on VMware vSphere servers, including ESX, ESXi, and vCenter Server. The API exposed is the same in all products. However, vCenter Server provides the following capabilities which are not available through an ESX or ESXi Web service:

■	Collecting historical performance data

■	Optimizing resources, including managing distributed resources

■	Enabling migration from one host system to another by using VMware vMotion

■	Providing distributed resource management, including recovery, across all host systems under its control

If you attempt to invoke an operation on an ESX or ESXi system that is supported only on vCenter Server, the server returns a fault saying “not implemented” or “not supported.” For example, the ExtensionManager API is available only on VirtualCenter Server 2.5 and subsequent releases of vCenter Server. Attempting to register an extension to an ESX system returns a fault, “not supported.”