To vCenter or not to vCenter

[Labcoat]

I built a VMware Server 1.x -- and later 2.x -- farm at my company several years ago.  I am trying to move us to ESXi 4.x.  I have 2 ESXi 4.x physical hosts, and the time has now come where I need to get serious about good failover.  On my old free VMware Server farm running on Linux, I used rsync and scp --  with scripted shutdowns in cases -- to do replications to other servers, buildings, etc.

On ESXi 4.x, I continue to use the shell to grab VMDKs, and copy them to safe places, but we recently bought Veeam, and I am setting that up now.  Veeam pushes vCenter Server.  I have no SAN and no shared storage at all.  I know there would be no vMotion.

Questions: what advantages/disadvatages would there be to vCenter Server over just using access to the physical hosts like I do?  Would any irrecoverable changes be made to the ESXi hosts after I install vCenter Server?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

How are the hosts currently licensed? AFAIK Veeam does not backup ESXi hosts running with the free license!?

If you don't have a license yet, you may want to consider vSphere Essentials (about $500 + optional subscription). The only disadvantage with this is that you need a Windows licence to install vCenter Server. The advantages of the paid license are that you can clone or cold migrate VM's and use Update Manager and a few others.

For details see http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/small_business_editions_comparison.html

André

[Labcoat]

Ugh, I accidently clicked "Correct Answer" and didn't mean to -- cannot find how to undo that, but your post was good please don't take that wrong way

We bought Academic VMware vSphere 4 Essentials for 6 CPUs -- 3 phsycial servers.  I have 2 going now.  We then bought Veeam Standard.  You are exactly right on Veeam not backing up ESXi free.

Is the Windows license you speak of Microsofts?  We got that covered.

I'll check the link....

[a_p_]

Is the Windows license you speak of Microsofts?  We got that covered

Yes, vCenter Server 4.1 runs on a 64-bit Windows. For supported OS versions see http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_compatibility_matrix.pdf

André

[Walfordr]

Labcoat wrote:

Questions: what advantages/disadvatages would there be to vCenter Server over just using access to the physical hosts like I do?  Would any irrecoverable changes be made to the ESXi hosts after I install vCenter Server?

There are alot of advantages to vCenter.  I would recommend it once you have more than 1 host.  And it is supported as a VM so you would not need an additional physical server.

Here are a few of the advantages:

Single point to manage your hosts

Templates

Cloning - cold and hot

Migration - cold and hot (vmotion - you'd need shared storage.)

Hosts Clustering - DRS, EVC, HA, FT (shared storage)

Update Manager

Guided Consolation

Task Scheduler - You can schedule things like snapshots, cloning, migration, shutdown, poweron, etc.

**You can use Veeam.

You can always install and use it for the 60day eval to see how it works in your environment, without shared storage.

[Labcoat]

Good stuff.  I think I'm reaching critical mass on whether or not to do vCenter Server for my 2 physical ESXi hosts.

Last question (hopefully): I have conflicting information on whether or not I can still manage my 2 physical ESXi hosts _without_ vCenter _after_ I install vCenter.

One friend of mine who works at a very large corporation with access to full ESX, an expensive SAN and all that, tells me he can still manage his individual, physical hosts if need be.  However, I got info else where that, as soon as I add ESXi host to vCenter, I lose the ability to manage it as a standalone host, and instead have to manage it through the vCenter connection.

Please clarify.

Right now, I'm thinking I will go ahead and do Veeam with just the standalone hosts, and as soon as I get some free time, do vCenter Server _if_ it won't cause bunches of headaches.

[golddiggie]

Labcoat wrote:

Last question (hopefully): I have conflicting information on whether or not I can still manage my 2 physical ESXi hosts _without_ vCenter _after_ I install vCenter.

Right now, I'm thinking I will go ahead and do Veeam with just the standalone hosts, and as soon as I get some free time, do vCenter Server _if_ it won't cause bunches of headaches.

Yes, you can still administrate/manage a host by directly connecting to it and logging in. I've done it when either the vCenter Server was offline for some reason. If the vCenter Server is still running, and you connect directly to the host, you'll get a message about the host being managed by a vCenter Server. You can just ignore that while you do what you need to.

I prefer to make my vCenter Server a VM so that it's easy to setup and maintain. Boot/reboot times are faster than on physical hardware too. Since you already have two hosts online, I would make getting the vCenter Server up and running a priority. I would also setup VUM on it, or on another VM, so that you have easier update capabilities.

[macpiano]

I had seperate vms with VCenter and I bought the licensing just to go to VCenter so I could see everything at once. I run it on one of the Vms. I am now pricing enterprise so I can move the storage while they are on. I'm not a VM heavyweight so your milage may vary. All I know is I installed and it just works.