Prerequisites

This section covers what you need to begin VDDK and VADP development.

Development Systems

The VDDK has been tested and is supported on the following systems:

■	Windows, both 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x86-64

■	Linux, separate packages for 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x86-64

See the VDDK Release Notes for specific versions, which change over time. Mac OS X is not supported.

Programming Environments

You can compile the sample program and develop vSphere applications in the following environments:

Visual Studio on Windows

On Windows systems, programmers can use the C++ compiler in Visual Studio 2003 (except with x86-64), Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2008, and later.

C++ and C on Linux

On Linux systems, programmers can use the GNU C compiler, version 4 and higher. The sample program compiles with the C++ compiler g++, but VDDK also works with the C compiler gcc.

Java Development for VADP

When developing backup and restore software to run on vSphere, VMware recommends Eclipse with Java, on both Windows and Linux. The vSphere Web Services SDK now includes both Axis and JAX-WS bindings. You can call C or C++ code with wrapper classes, as in Java Native Interface (JNI).

VMware Platform Products

Software applications developed with the VDDK and VADP target the following platform products:

■	vCenter Server managing ESX/ESXi hosts

■	ESX/ESXi hosts directly connected

See the VDDK Release Notes for specific versions, which change over time.

Hosted products including VMware Workstation are neither tested nor supported.

Storage Device Support

VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) had knowledge base article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007479 showing the support matrix for storage devices and multipathing. VMware does not provide a similar support matrix for VDDK and VADP. Customers must get this information from you, their backup software vendor.