Virtual Disk API Programming Guide - Documentation - VMware

Virtual Disk Programming Guide
Virtual Disk Library
VixDiskLib is a standalone wrapper library to help you develop solutions that integrate into VMware platform
products. The virtual disk library has the following capabilities:
It allows programs to create, convert, expand, defragment, shrink, and rename virtual disk files.
It can create redo logs (parent‐child disk chaining, or deltas) and can delete VMDK files.
It permits random read/write access to data anywhere in a VMDK file, and reads metadata.
It can connect to remote vSphere storage using advanced transports, SAN or HotAdd.
For Windows, the virtual disk kernel‐mode driver is 32‐bit or 64‐bit depending on the underlying system.
User‐mode libraries are 32‐bit because Windows On Windows 64 can run 32‐bit programs without alteration.
For Linux, both 32‐bit and 64‐bit user‐mode libraries are provided.
Disk Mount Library
The virtual disk mount library, vixMntapi, allows programmatic access of virtual disks as if they were
mounted disk partitions. For more information see Appendix A, “Virtual Disk Mount API,” on page 87. The
vixMntapi library is packaged in the VDDK with vixDiskLib.
Virtual Disk Utilities
The Virtual Disk Development Kit includes two command‐line utilities for managing virtual disk: disk mount
and virtual disk manager. The virtual disk manager has been included with VMware Server and Workstation.
Disk mount is available in the Virtual Disk Development Kit.
VMware disk mount (vmware-mount) is a utility for Windows and Linux hosts. If a virtual disk is not in use,
the utility mounts it as an independent disk volume, so it can be examined outside its original virtual machine.
You can also mount specific volumes of a virtual disk if the virtual disk is partitioned.
VMware virtual disk manager (vmware-vdiskmanager) is a command‐line utility for Windows and Linux
hosts. It allows you to create, convert, expand, defragment, shrink, and rename virtual disk files. It does not
have a facility to create redo logs or snapshots.
For more information see the Disk Mount and Virtual Disk Manager User’s Guide, which is available on the Web.
Backup and Restore on vSphere
The VMware Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) is a collection of APIs that are useful for developing or
extending backup software so it can protect virtual machines running on ESX/ESXi hosts in VMware based
datacenters. For more information see Chapter 7, “Designing vSphere Backup Solutions,” on page 57.
Backup Design for vCloud Director
With VMware vCloud ® , the self‐service capabilities of vCloud Director provide three levels of data protection.
Backup providers can offer vApp protection at the system level, the tenant level, or the end‐user level. For
information about vCloud data protection, see the technical note Backup Design for vCloud Tenant vApps.
Use Cases for the Virtual Disk Library
The VDDK provides easy access to virtual disk storage, enabling a wide range of use cases for application
vendors including:
Back up a particular volume, or all volumes, associated with a virtual machine.
Connect a backup proxy to vSphere and back up all virtual machines on a storage cluster.
Read virtual disk and run off‐line centralized anti‐virus scanning of virtual machines.
Read virtual disk and run software package analysis of virtual machines.
12 VMware, Inc.