Just learning the lingo for new technology can be a challenge and VMware virtualization terminology and acronyms are no different. After all, that’s a lot of vStuff! I gave you the first 50 last time, so here’s the next 50 to complete your beginner’s glossary.

51. Shares: Numerical value representing the relative priority of a VM.

52. Datastore: A disk resource where VMs can run.

53. vSphere Fault Tolerance: An availability technique to run the networking, memory and CPU of a VM on two hosts to accommodate one host failure.

54. DPM: Distributed Power Management, a way to shut down ESXi hosts when they are not being used and turn them back on when needed.

55. vShield Zones: A firewall for vSphere VMs.

56. vCenter Orchestrator: An automation technique for vCloud environments.

57. OVF: Standards based format for delivering virtual appliances.

58. OVA: Packaging of OVF, usually as a URL to download the actual OVF from a source Internet site. Read more here.

59. VMware Tools: A set of drivers for VMs to work correctly on synthetic hardware devices. Read more on VMware Tools.

60. vSphere Licensing: Different features are available as the licensing level increases, from free ESXi to Enterprise Plus.

61. vCloud Suite: The collection of technologies to deliver the VMware Software Defined Data Center.

62. VMware Compatibility Matrix: List of supported storage, servers, and more for VMware technologies. Bookmark this page!

63. .NVRAM: A VM file storing the state of the VM BIOS.

64. .VMDK: The virtual machine disk format, containing the operating system of the VM. VMware’s virtual disk format.

65. .VMEM: The page file of the guest VM.

66. .VMSN: Snapshot state file of the running VM.

67. .VMSD: VM file for storing information and metadata about snapshots.

68. .VMSS: VM file for storing suspended state.

69. .VMTM: VM file containing team data.

70. .VMX: VM configuration file.

71. .VMXF: Supplemental configuration file for when VMs are used in a team.

72. Quiesce: The act of quieting (pausing running processes) a VM, usually through VMware Tools.

73. vSphere role: A permissions construct assigned to users or groups.

74. Configuration Maximums: Guidelines of how big a VM can be; see the newest for vSphere 5.5.

75. Transparent page sharing: A memory management technique; eliminates duplicate blocks in host memory.

76. Memory compression: A memory management technique; applies a compressor to active memory blocks on the host.

77. Balloon driver: A memory management technique; reclaims guest VM memory via VMware Tools.

78. Hypervisor swap: A memory management technique; puts guest VM memory to disk on the host.

79. Hot-add: A feature to add a device to a VM while it is running, such as a VMDK.

80. Dynamic grow: A feature to increase the size of VMDK while the VM is running.

81. CPU Ready: The percentage of time that the VM is ready to get a CPU cycle (higher number is bad).

82. Nested hypervisor: The ability to run ESXi as a VM either on ESXi, VMware Workstation, or VMware Fusion.

83. Virtual hardware version: A revision of a VM that aligns to its compatibility. vSphere 5.5 is hardware version 10, for example.

84. Maintenance mode: An administration technique where a host evacuates it’s running and powered off VMs safely before changes are made.

85. vApp: An organizational construct combining one or more VMs.

86. Cluster: A collection of hosts in a vSphere data center.

87. Resource pool: A performance management technique, has DRS rules applied to it and contains one or more VMs, vApps, etc.

88. vSphere folder: An organizational construct, a great way to administer permissions and roles on VMs.

89. Datacenter: Parent object of the vSphere Cluster.

90. vCloud Networking and Security: Part of the vCloud Suite; provides basic networking and security functionality.

91. vCenter Site Recovery Manager: An automated solution to prepare for a site failover event for the entire vSphere environment.

92. NSX: New technology virtualizing the network layer for VMware environments. Read more here.

93. VDI: Virtual desktop infrastructure, also called DaaS (Desktop as a Service) from Horizon View; run as ESXi VMs and with vSphere.

94. VXLAN: VMs with a logical network across different networks.

95. vCenter Configuration Manager: Part of vCloud Suite that automates configuration and compliance for multiple platforms.

96. vCenter Single Sign on: Authentication construct between components of the vCloud Suite.

97. VM-VM affinity: Sets rules so two VMs should run on the same ESXi host or stay separated.

98. Storage I/O Control: I/O prioritization for VMs.

99. Openstack: A cloud operating system that can leverage many hypervisors underneath, including ESXi.

100. VOVA: A VMware appliance to test OpenStack for vSphere. Read more here.

There you go — a glossary of 100 VMware terms to study. Feel free to post questions in the comments and add any particularly challenging aspects of VMware tech that you’d like to see explained further.