Components communicating in the service layer can use the following types of interfaces:

Data Service

The Data Service is an interface accessible to the Data Access Manager or to controller services used by HTML UI components.

Data Access Manager

The Data Access Manager is a Flex library provided by VMware to simplify communications between Flex UI components and the service layer.

PropertyProviderAdapter

Property Provider Adapters implement the PropertyProviderAdapter interface of the Data Service. This interface is designed to provide properties of VMware managed objects.

DataProviderAdapter

Data Provider Adapters implement the DataProviderAdapter interface of the Data Service. This interface is designed to provide properties of custom objects.

Web Services API

The Web Services API is supported by vCenter Server and ESXi systems. It provides access to vSphere managed objects using an XML SOAP protocol.

Custom Service Interfaces

You can design your own service interfaces to use in custom Java services.