vSphere with a single ESXi host

[MariusRoma]

I do understand that the question can sound crazy, but consider please a pure testing and selftraining environment with limited HW resources.

I don't think in any way to implement the same configuration in a production environment.

Can I create a vSphere infrastructure with a single ESXi host and a vCenter?

If I can get an additional box, can I install an additional ESXi server and create a vSphere infrastructure with 2 ESXi servers without a shared disk?

Regards

marius

[pwilk · Accepted solution]

Single ESXi setup in vSphere is possible, although you won't be able to test/play around with most of the functions of vSphere as those would require 2+ hosts (High Av. etc.)

It is also possible to create a two ESXi vSphere environment without shared storage between the hosts. Shared storage is required by some advanced features of vShpere however you don't have to use them in your lab environment.

[pwilk]

Also, if you have an access to a host with at least 16GB of RAM, you could potentially play around with an idea having of two 'nested' ESXi hosts (VMs with ESXi as the OS) running on ESXi on the physical host. Nested ESXi hosts are capable of running VMs of their own ('double nested') with all basic features such virtual networking. Read about it here: Running Nested VMs