The service provider’s customer. The organization who pays for the service, and the users who use the service.

The vCloud Director “parent” object which provides an administrative connection between users and their allocated resources (in the form of Organization VDCs).

The portion of the infrastructure that is used by, and provides services to, the customer.

vCloud Director object which represents an individual customer (or service provider) representative accessing the service through a preconfigured account.

A geographic location within which a vCloud Director instance runs. Usually a single physical location, but can also be spread across multiple, connected locations. (See Metro-Cluster.)

A VMware vSphere® deployment built on a metropolitan area network which allows the compute, network, and storage components to be deployed in different locations (where transmission latencies between locations are low enough), while remaining part of the same logical “site”.

The distribution of load in which the proportion of the load sent to each receiver is balanced according to predetermined rules.

The distribution of load without consideration to the proportion of load sent to each receiver.