ESX Architecture

1. Service Console (COS -Console Operating System)

- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (Update 6) based Linux distribution that is heavily modified and stripped down to provide a lightweight management interface of the VMkernel to the end user.
- primary function of the Service Console is to bootstrap and turn over full control of all hardware resources to the VMkernel.
- assigned a default value of 272 MB of physical host memory to execute processes and manage the small amount of physical hardware that the VMkernel doesn’t manage.
- runs as a privileged virtual machine inside the VMkernel and is subject to resource allocation
and scheduling alongside other virtual machines running on the ESX host.
- responsible for user interaction with ESX (SSH, web, Virtual Client,Direct console access)