When an administrator adds a vCenter Server as an Asset Source in PowerProtect Data Manager, the discovery process scans the vSphere hierarchy to populate the PPDM database with the available infrastructure.

Discovered Components: The primary objects identified during this process are Hosts, Clusters, and Virtual Machines (VMs). This inventory allows the administrator to see the relationship between assets and their physical location, which is crucial for assigning protection policies and selecting the appropriate network paths.

Exclusions: VM Proxies (Protection Engines) are components deployed by PPDM or registered manually to facilitate backups; they are not 'discovered' as assets from the vCenter inventory. Similarly, Protection Storage (PowerProtect DD) is an infrastructure component that is added separately and is not part of the vCenter discovery scan.