vCenter Support Tools
In addition to VUM, vCenter includes a few other useful support tools. Let's go through them before we finish up this chapter and move out of vCenter specifics and on to networking.
ESXi Dump Collector
The ESXi Dump Collector is a centralized service that can receive and store memory dumps from ESXi servers should they crash unexpectedly. These memory dumps occur when an ESXi host suffers what is known as a purple screen of death (PSOD), analogous to the Windows blue screen of death (BSOD) or a Linux kernel panic. The kernel grabs the contents of memory and dumps them to nonvolatile disk storage before the server reboots. This allows VMware support services to investigate the cause of the PSOD and hopefully recommend an action to prevent the issue from occurring again.
Ordinarily, these dumps are sent to the host's local storage in a separate partition not normally mounted to the running filesystem, known as vmkDiagnostic. If the host has been deployed...