All of the features or solutions that make up a software-defined datacenter aim to provide infrastructure for virtual machines. A virtual machine emulates a physical machine with well-known hardware on which traditional operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Linux can be installed and operated. As of vSphere 6.7, it is based on the Intel 440BX chipset. This can change with any new release. It also emulates other hardware, such as the VGA controller, SCSI controllers, network cards, and various other devices.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Creating a Virtual Machine
• Creating Virtual Machine Snapshots
• Deleting Virtual Machine Snapshots
• Reverting to the current Virtual Machine Snapshot
• Switching to an Arbitrary Virtual Machine Snapshot
• Consolidating Snapshots
• Exporting a Virtual Machine