5. vCloud Resource Design : 5.1 vCloud Director Constructs
   
5.1 vCloud Director Constructs
VMware vCloud Director introduces logical constructs to facilitate multi-tenancy and provide interoperability between vCloud instances built to the vCloud API standard.
The following figure shows the logical constructs within vCloud Director that abstract underlying vSphere resources.
Figure 8. Physical, Virtual, and vCloud Abstraction Mapping
 

The following table provides descriptions of each construct.
Table 8. vCloud Director Constructs
Construct
Definition
Organization
The unit of multtenancy that represents a single logical security boundary. An organization contains users, virtual datacenters, and networks.
Provider virtual datacenter
A grouping of compute and storage resources from a single vCenter Server. A provider virtual datacenter consists of a single resource pool and one or more datastores. Multiple organizations can share provider virtual datacenter resources.
Organization virtual datacenter
A sub-grouping of compute and storage resources allocated from a provider virtual datacenter and assigned to a single organization. A virtual datacenter is a deployment environment where vApps can be instantiated, deployed, and powered on.
An organization virtual datacenter allocates resources using one of the following models:
*Pay-As-You-Go.
*Reservation Pool.
*Allocation Pool.
Catalog
A repository of vApp templates and media available to users for deployment. Catalogs can be published to all organizations in the same vCloud environment.
vApp
A container for a software solution in the vCloud, and the standard unit of deployment for workloads in vCloud Director. vApps contain one or more virtual machines, have power-on operations, and can be imported or exported as an OVF.
External network
External networks provide external connectivity to organization virtual datacenter networks and are backed by port groups configured for Internet accessibility.
Organization virtual datacenter network
Organization virtual datacenter networks are instantiated through network pools and bound to a single organization. Organization virtual datacenter networks map to a vSphere port group and can be isolated, routed, or directly connected to an external network.
vApp network
A network that connects virtual machines within a vApp, deployed by a consumer from a network pool. vApp networks can be directly connected or routed to an organization virtual datacenter network.
Network pool
A network pool is a collection of isolated Layer 2 virtual networks available to vCloud Director for the automated deployment of private and NAT-routed networks.
 
Use the vSphere Client to observe how creating entities through vCloud Director translates into vCenter Server tasks.