api for dummies ?

[nomad-cyanide]

Hi

Is there any descriptions for vmware-dummies, such as myself available?

A little background: I am a network engineer tasked with automating network-related tasks in vmware, both "normal" hyper-visor setup and NSX. I am used to automating in python and have done so successfully before with api's for Juniper and Check Point.
I am not accustomed to the many terms in the vmware world, so if any could point to something I could read to lay the ground-work as it were, that would be great.
It might just be me looking the wrong places, but the more I look, the more confused I get.

I am looking for simple info on how to connect to a vcenter (to create portgroups) and to a VMware Cloud Director (to attach/associate portgroups with specific tenants).
NSX will be a task for later on, once I have a handle on the basics.

I have tried this with success, but gets stuck afterwards as what I am able to to with it:

from vmware.vapi.vsphere.client import create_vsphere_client
vsphere_client = create_vsphere_client(server='<ip>', username='<username>', password='<pwd>', session=session)

Other examples I have seen make use of pyVim, but that I cannot get to work:

from pyVim import connect
inputs = {'vcenter_ip': '<ip>,
          'vcenter_password': '<pwd>',
          'vcenter_user': '<username>',
          }
vcenter = connect.Connect(inputs['vcenter_ip'], 443, inputs['vcenter_user'], inputs['vcenter_password'], version="vim.version.version8")

Any help is greatly appreciated!