vCenter Server responsiveness is one of the challenges administrators face when environments grow. This can
be the effect of multiple client connections to the vCenter server. Active vSphere Client connections, idle
connections such as a session that a client has left open, poorly written scripts and so on impact performance of
the vCenter server. With vSphere 5.1, vCenter Inventory Service reduces direct client requests to the vCenter
server with query caching, reducing the load on core vCenter Server processes.
The main use case of the vCenter Inventory Service is to manage the vSphere Web Client inventory objects and
property queries that the client requests when users navigate the vSphere environment. The vSphere Web
Client requests only information viewed on the screen, so navigation is more efficient. In vCenter Server 5.0,
vCenter Inventory Service was a separate process. With the updated vCenter Server, it is now a separate
independent component and can be offloaded to a separate server or closer to the vSphere Web Client. This
reduces traffic and improves response times.