When you install a VMware vCloud Director instance, it comes with an embedded JRE (Java Runtime Environment). For example, vCloud Director includes JRE 1.8.0_121 :

1$VCLOUD_HOME/jre/bin/java -version
2java version "1.8.0_121"
3Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13)
4Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server …

VMware introduced in version 5.5 of vCloud Director, a feature to externaly expose catalogs and if necessary, to subscribe to an externaly exposed one.

This is useful to synchronize catalog between two (or more) vCloud Director instances.

Basic usage

The two following sections are extracts from the VMware documentation …