What is the purpose of a Resource Pool in vSphere?

A Resource Pool in vSphere is primarily used to optimize compute resources for a group of virtual machines (VMs). This allows for better management of CPU and memory resources by grouping VMs together, enabling administrators to allocate resources based on specific needs or performance requirements.

By utilizing a Resource Pool, VMs can inherit resource limits, reservations, and shares from the pool, which helps ensure that critical applications get the necessary resources while also maintaining an organized structure for resource management. This is particularly useful in environments with multiple workloads, allowing for a more granular and efficient management of compute resources.

Resource Pools can also help in scenarios where multiple tenants or projects must coexist within a single vSphere cluster, providing isolation and prioritization as needed. This capability enhances resource utilization by allowing the virtualization environment to adapt more dynamically to changing workloads and demands.

In contrast, the other options focus on functionalities that are outside the scope of Resource Pools. For instance, managing storage allocation pertains to storage resources rather than compute resources, dividing networks relates to networking aspects of VMs, and creating network overlays deals with network virtualization rather than resource management.