VMware Acronyms

Technology can seem like it’s own language many times.  VMware’s growing product set adds it’s set of acronyms that can be confusing to the novice.  I’ve created this dictionary of VMware Acronyms and their definitions as way to help out my clients and the VMware community.

I attempt to update it regularly, with current acronyms at the top and deprecated ones below.

Got an update or suggestion? Let me know.

Current

ADM = vCenter Application Discover Manager (previously: EMC Ionix Application Discovery Manager, nLayers Application Discovery Manager)

CB = vCenter Chargeback

CIQ | CapIQ = vCenter Capacity IQ

DPM = Distributed Power Management (function of vSphere)

DRS = Distributed Resource Scheduler (function of vSphere)

DVS = Distributed Virtual Switch, officially known as VDS (function of vSphere)

ESX = bare metal Hypervisor with linux based Service Console available on each host.

ESXi = thin bare metal Hypervisor (without a Service Console which added most of the size to the software distribution)

FT = Fault Tolerance (function of vSphere)

HA = High Availability (function of vSphere)

NIOC = Network I/O Control (function of vSphere)

SM = vCenter Service Manager (previously: EMC Ionix Service Manager, InfraEnterprise) (prior abbreviation for  vCenter Stage Manager which became integrated with LM4 and was depreciated)

SIOC = Storage I/O Control (function of vSphere)

SRM = vCenter Site Recovery Manager

VC = generally used to reference Virtual Center or vCenter Server (eventual vCenter became a family name for all management products)

VCD = vCloud Director (aka, Project Redwood)

VCM = vCenter Configuration Manager (previously: EMC Ionix Server Configuration Manager, Configuresoft Enterprise Configuration Manager). Sometimes suggestion it should stand for vCenter Compliance Manager, but it doesn’t.

VCOPS = vCenter Operations

VDS = vNetwork Distributed Switch or unofficially Virtual Distributed Switch (function of vSphere)

VRM = vCloud Request Manager

vS | VS = vSphere, packaging referring to vCenter Server and ESXi Hypervisor (ESXi 4.0, 4.1, 5.0)

VSA = vSphere Storage Appliance

VSM = vCloud Service Manager

VUM = vCenter Update Manager

Deprecated

ASM = vCenter Application Stack Manager (previously: EMC Ionix Application Stack Manager, FastScale Application Stack Manager)

CAM = vCenter Configuration Analytics Manager (previously: EMC Ionix Configuration Analytics Manager,  Configuresoft Configuration Intelligence Analytics)

 LCM = vCenter LifeCycle Manager

LM = vCenter Lab Manager (End of Life announced, product functionality replaced by vCloud Director)

SD / vCSD = vCloud Service Director (originally know as Project Redwood, Service Director was a short lived name before product was launched as vCloud Director.)

VI = Virtual Infrastructure (ESX 3.x)

VIEE = Virtual Infrastructure Enterprise Edition (ESX 3.x)