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Duncan Epping has wrote (on 2010) a nice post with the meaning of several, not too obvious, VMware acronyms used sometime in some product name, but usually in the internal process or file name. In those post you can found also some interesting facts about the meaning and the origin of some names.

Now I’ve just put a copy here and short the list alphabetically and also added some new entries:

AAM Automated Availability Manager (aka VMware HA since v 4.1)
ADM Application Discover Manager
ALUA Asymmetric Logical Unit Access
APD All Paths Down
APM Application Performance Manager
CBM Chargeback Manager
CBRC Content Based Read Cache
CF Cloud Foundry
CIM Common Interface Model (standard acronym)
CIQ Capacity IQ (now integrated in Operation Manager Suite)
CSI Clustering Services Infrastructure
DAS Distributed Availability Service (VMware HA advanced options)
DD Data Director
DPM Distributed Power Management
DRS Distributed Resources Scheduler
DVS Distributed Virtual Switch
ESX Elastic Sky X
ESXi Elastic Sky X Integrated
EUC End User Computing
EVC Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
FDM Fault Domain Manager (aka VMware HA from v 5.0)
FT Fault Tolerance (VMware FT)
GFE GemFire Enterprise
GSX Ground Storm X or Ground Swell X (aka the VMware Server)
HA High Availability
HCL Hardware Compatibility List
HoL Hands-on Labs
IODM I/O Device Management
MVP Mobile Virtualization Platform (aka Horizon Mobile)
NEE Next-Generation Education Environment (Project Nee is used actually for the HoL)
N(ET)IOC Network I/O Control
NSX Network Sky X?
P2V Physical to Virtual
PAE Propero Application Environment
PDL Permanent Device Loss
PSO Professional Services Organisation
S2 SpringSource
SDDC Software Defined Data Center
SDRS Storage Distributed Resource Scheduling
SI Spring Integration
SIOC Storage I/O Control
SM Service Manager
SQLF SQLFire
SRM Site Recovery Manager
STS SpringSource Tool Suite
V2V Virtual to Virtual
VAAI vStorage API for Array Integration
VADM vCenter Application Discovery Manager
VCAC vCloud Automation Center
VCAP VMware Certified Advanced Professional
VCAT vCloud Architecture Toolkit
VCD vCloud Director
VCDX VMware Certified Design Expert
vCHS vCloud Hybrid Service
VCLI vSphere Command Line Interface
VCM vCenter Configuration Manager
VCO vCenter Orchestrator
VCOPS vCenter Operations
VCP VMware Certified Professional
vCSA vCenter Server Appliance
VCSN vCloud Security and Networking
VDC Virtual Data Center
VDP vSphere Data Protection
VDR vMware Data Recovery
VDS vNetwork Distributed Switch
VIM Virtual Infrastructure Management
VIN vCenter Infrastructure Navigator
VIX Virtual Infrastructure eXtension
vMA vSphere Management Assistant
VMFS Virtual Machine File System
VMRC VMware Remote Console
VMS vFabric Management Service
VMSA VMware Security Advisory
VMTN VMware Technology Network
VMX Virtual Machine eXecutable (used in the VM config file)
VPX Virtual Provisioning X (aka the vCenter Server)
VPXA Virtual Provisioning X Agent
VPXD Virtual Provisioning X Daemon
VR vSphere Replication
VRM vCloud Request Manager
VSA vSphere Storage Appliance
VSAN vSphere Storage Area Network?
VSM VMware Service Manager
VSP VMware Sales Professional
vswif Virtual Switch Interface (used in the old ESX server as a management network interface)
VTSP VMware Technical Sales Professional
VUM vCenter Update Manager
VXLAN Virtual Extensible Local Area Network

In the related post, there are also several comments and a possible interpretation of where the “X” comes from.

For a list of site with several VMware acronyms:

The is also another interesting post from William Lan with how to pronounce some of VMware’s acronyms.

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.