Which component of vSphere allows for the automated distribution of workloads?

The Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) is the component of vSphere that facilitates the automated distribution of workloads across hosts within a cluster. DRS continuously monitors resource usage and workload demands across virtual machines and physical hosts, ensuring that workloads are balanced and that resources are allocated efficiently based on predefined policies.

When a virtual machine is powered on or if its resource demands change, DRS can intelligently migrate workloads using vMotion to deploy virtual machines to the most appropriate hosts. This dynamic load balancing helps prevent any single host from becoming a bottleneck while improving the overall performance and availability of the services being provided.

While VMware Tools plays an important role in enhancing the performance and capabilities of virtual machines, it does not manage workload distribution. The Distributed Switch improves network management across multiple hosts but does not directly influence workload placement. Storage DRS, although effective in managing storage resources and balancing workload demands on datastores, focuses solely on storage rather than compute resources in the way DRS does.