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Infrastructure Management

SDK or API Description
VMware vSphere Management SDK Bundles documentation for the following SDKs, which help developers create management applications that call VMware API functions to access vSphere Web services:
vSphere Web Services SDK
vSphere Storage Monitoring Service SDK
vSphere Solutions Manager, ESX Agent Manager, and vServices SDKs
VMware vSphere Web Client SDK The vSphere Web Client has an extensible interface for building your own vSphere management plug-ins.
VMware Remote Console (VMRC) SDK The VMRC SDK allows you to use a Web-based application to connect to a vCenter-managed virtual machine and access that virtual machine's console in a browser window. You can interact with the virtual machine console input and screen. You can also use the VMRC SDK to manage virtual and physical device connections on a vCenter-managed virtual machine.
VMware vSphere SDK for Perl A client-side Perl framework that provides an easy-to-use scripting interface to the vSphere Web Services API.
VMware CIM APIs Common Information Model (CIM) APIs manage hosts using the System Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) standard.

Appliances, Backup, and Virtual Disk

SDK or API Description
VMware Studio VMware Studio supports transforming software applications running on Linux or Windows into virtual machines for delivery as quick-starting virtual appliances.
Open Virtualization Format (OVF) Tool A command-line utility that supports importing and exporting OVF packages to and from a wide variety of VMware products.
VMware vSphere Site Recovery Manager API Documents how to programmatically initiate tests or failovers and collect results using a Web Services API for vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) components. Includes sample code, WSDL, and documentation.
VMware VDDK Describes how to implement backup and recovery software for vSphere platforms. The Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) includes a C function library and utilities to create and access storage in VMDK (virtual machine disk) format.

Guest Virtual Machines

SDK or API Description
VMware vSphere Guest SDK A read-only API that enables software running on a guest virtual machine to collect various statistics, such as virtual machine memory usage and CPU speed.
VMware VProbes Reference (PDF) Explains how to transparently instrument the virtualization layer and powered-on guest operating system of a virtual machine.
VMware VMCI Sockets Documents a programming interface for fast, efficient communication between guest virtual machines and their ESXi host.
VMware VIX API An easy-to-use API for automating virtual machine and guest-OS operations. Includes C, Perl, and COM bindings, with code samples. Compatible with VMware Workstation, ESXi, and vSphere.

Legacy Interfaces

SDK or API Description
Programming API Available on VMware Server 1.0 and earlier only. Documents how to create scripts and applications for automating virtual machine test and development operations. Replaced by VMware VIX API.
Scripting APIs Legacy Perl and COM interfaces supported on ESX 3.0 and GSX Server. VMware strongly recommends that developers use the vSphere SDK for Perl or the vSphere Web Services SDK rather than Scripting APIs.