Even more powerful than the VMware Scripting APIs, VMware has released Virtual Infrastructure (VI) SDK to give developers a standards-based avenue to manage their VMware investment. Today, there are two versions of the VI SDK tied to the two predominant releases of the VMware ESX Server and VirtualCenter products. In this section, we will review the architecture of the VI SDK 2.0 (for managing ESX 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0), as well as the VI SDK 1.1 (for managing ESX Server 2.5.x and VirtualCenter 1.x).

Why continue to discuss the original VI SDK release 1.1? With the release of the Virtual Infrastructure 3 and VI SDK 2.0 in June 2006, VMware is banking on lots of customers upgrading to the latest release to take advantage of the additional benefits and features available. However, the conversion to this major upgrade will take some time, as customer test their upgrade strategies, gain acceptance from the user and business community, and actually perform the upgrades in accordance with their internal change management processes. In addition, VI SDK 1.1 scripts can still be run against the new version if configured for backwards-compatibility.

In the following sections, we will review the architecture and composition of the VI SDK, developing with the SDK 1.1, and developing with the SDK 2.0. Each version of the SDK is discussed separately because of the substantial differences between them; however, the concepts discussed can be incorporated in your development activities regardless of...