Authentication and core services layer – vSphere Platform Services Controller

VMware has bundled the essential services, such as the Single Sign-On (SSO), Inventory Service, and certificate management, into a single manageable solution named the Platform Services Controller (PSC). The PSC can be installed on the same machine as the vCenter, installed on a separate supported Windows machine, or run as an integrated component of the vCSA. Refer VMware KB Article 2147672 for supported topologies(https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2147672).

SSO is an authentication gateway, which takes the authentication requests from various registered components and validates the credential pair against the identity sources added to the SSO server. The components are registered to the SSO server during their installation. We will delve deeper into PSC, and its components in Chapter 2, Greenfield Deployment of vSphere 6.5.