The real utility of vCloud environments comes from the service catalogs and automated deployment of services. This orchestration makes it simpler for end users to go to a self-service portal and order a new instance of a service that is created and deployed on the backend infrastructure automatically.

The end user doesn't need to worry about which physical host to install the application, the database tier and the application tier, the network connections and IP pool of the application, and certainly not which types of storage should be utilized. All of these decisions should be made for the user based on the policy and definition of the vApp in vCloud.

The vApp is the building block of services in vCloud Director as well as vSphere. vApps package together the multiple pieces that create a full service or application. Many times, applications require multiple systems in order to operate, and the vApp concept helps them package together those disparate...