VMware...can someone help me understand?

[CHiLL]

Hello,

We have a VMware solution in place, where we can access a Terminal Server from the outside. It's set up on Server 2008, on ESXi I believe. We connect to ESXi using vSphere.

However, what is confusing me, is we have the following appearing in the ESXi:

vCenter
ViewCenter
Terminal Server
VDI

I know what the latter two are, but what is the vCenter and ViewCenter? What exactly do they do? Do we actually need them?

[ChrisH]

vCenter is for managing multiple Esxi servers from one console and allows features like Vmotion HA etc.

[CHiLL]

So where exactly does the vCenter sit/get installed? How does it differ to vSphere?

[ChrisH]

vSphere is for connecting to one server vCenter is like vSphere but you can use all the advanced features and connect to multiple servers. vCenter sits on a server and is the central place for logging and control of your virtual servers.

[CHiLL]

Right.

So it doesn't matter which server it sits on, or does it have to sit on them all?

[dgardner]

It doesn't matter really. It's generally good practise to install it on a member server with no other roles. It will have to handle things like certificate requests and licensing stuff too.

You can use vsphere to connect a single esxi host, or to a VCenter server and manage multiple hosts, clusters or datastores.

[CHiLL]

Thanks for the info.

Is there any way to trial vCenter? I'd like to create two ESXi servers, both with a couple of virtual servers. Just to see how it all hangs together. vCenter seems to be an integral part.

I know I said we already have it, but that's on a live server, and we aren't interfering with that in any way during our testing.

[Theblacksheep]

Thanks for the info.

Is there any way to trial vCenter? I'd like to create two ESXi servers, both with a couple of virtual servers. Just to see how it all hangs together. vCenter seems to be an integral part.

I know I said we already have it, but that's on a live server, and we aren't interfering with that in any way during our testing.

Go onto the VMware site and you can get 60 day trials of vCenter and the fully licensed ESXi (vSphere) host OSs.

They can all run in VMs too on VMware Workstation 8. You can run the vCenter VM (and Windows Server DCs) on the ESXi VM inside workstation or on an esxi box!

[CHiLL]

I can't find a link trial vCenter. Already got a trial ESXi server installed on a test machine.

[oxide54]

are you logged into the vmware site?

i don't think you need a specific trial link, just download the software and install it, it becomes "not-trial" when you enter a license key, at least it did with 4.1, havent used 5 yet.

[CHiLL]

I've managed to find it, and got ESXi installed. Just been having issues with vCenter and the rest of it. It's a huge learning curve.

[oxide54]

any questions fire away m8, beening running it for a good few years now.

if you new to it, be very careful of snapshots, 1. performance degradation and running out of disk spaces, just google it if you need more, (other people half already explained it better than I will)