Welcome to the VMware vSphere API Reference documentation. This API reference provides comprehensive information about all data structures available through the vSphere API:
The vSphere API is exposed as a Web service, running on VMware vSphere server systems. The API provides access to the vSphere management components—the managed objects that you can use to manage, monitor, and control life-cycle operations of virtual machines and other virtual infrastructure components (datacenters, datastores, networks, and so on).
This vSphere API Reference is a core component of the VMware vSphere Web Services SDK. You can use the vSphere Web Services SDK to create custom solutions for managing virtual components, and to integrate existing datacenter management solutions with VMware technologies. For example, using the vSphere API, you can quickly create, customize, or migrate virtual machines.
Descriptions in the API Reference use the label “Since vSphere API ” to identify new managed object types, data object types, properties, and methods. The following summary pages provide listings of new API elements:
The following links provide access to the API Versions Reference page, which lists all of the API elements. This reference page shows which versions of the API support the various elements. The API elements are organized by type.
The vSphere API Reference is an HTML frameset. Click an entry in the left-hand pane to display information in the right-hand pane. To find the description of a specific object type, click the appropriate category name and then refine your search by entering the object name in the search text field.
To quickly find an entry, start typing its name in the Quick Index field.
For conceptual and “how to” information, see one of these vSphere Web Services SDK technical publications:
The most recent published versions of these guides are available at:
http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk