vSphere, vCenter, vMware, Hypervisor, 36 different support options ala mass confusion

[anderwd]

Just orderd a book Mastering VMware vSphere 4 & VMware vSphere 4 Administr guide by Scott Lowe hopeing they will help me sort some of this stuff out so I can purchase enough without buying more than we need. But I am finding the whole arrangement of choices to be overly confusing. What I have right now is a single ESX 3.5 server hosting 3 Windows 2003 servers. We have no monitoring, nothing fancy and no one ever gets into the console. If cant be done with the VIC it just is not done.

What I wanted to get was one more Virtual host running ESX 4 (so it was 64 bit) and I would host 1 windows 2008 server on this box. However I will get enough hardware to support moving my 3 windows 2003 servers onto this host should the need arrise for a disaster crash if my old server takes a dump.

And I would like for the ESX OS to be supported so I can call someone if I get in over my head (which I may be already)! hoping the books will help me sort things out a bit. HP is telling me they will sell that to me, but I need to get vCenter as well - wont that require another Windows 2008 server to host the vCenter (eitehr physical or virtual). And every cheat sheet and quick check guide I have seen has about 30 + differetn ways it can be done. Any guidance would be greatly appriciaited.

[dtracey]

Hi,

Yes you are right in saying that if you are running vCenter - you will need an additional Windows license.

Unless you have two hosts, want to do HA, DRS, monitoring etc - you dont nec. need vCenter.

If you are looking at a single host - perhaps your books and ESXi Hypervisor (Free), will suffice? If you really need HP support (which will be more hardware related than help with VMware), then you could probably be better off purchasing this on a per-incident basis?

Just my two pennies worth.

Dan

[anderwd]

We will have two hosts and Old 3.5 one that is currenlty my production server and the new ESX 4 (and my understanding is that the vSphere 4 may not control or support the old 3.5 ESX server I have leaving it in the dust). I am currently using VRanger Pro to do the backups on the 3.5 server and VRanger told me that I can upgrade the software and it will cover both my ESX 3.5 and ESX 4 servers. I was hoping to also get VMware support for at least the first year of operations - but honestly for the server we have been running up to now, there is nothing that I have not been able to get worked out with this board and some time.

Can you get ESX 4 OS support? The HP Stuff was actually HP VMWare support (not the Hardware the OS - they have a 3 - 4 page sheet of differeing options) but they require vCenter, and if I get into the whole vCenter stuff (or vSphere Essentials Plus) then there should be no need for VRanger Pro. I was originally thinking along the lines you just stated, get an ESXi imbeded box that is covered for 3 years, and after that time, replace it with a newer one. But once you open this can of worms it just keeps getting bigger and the options are endless which makes the narrowing down the right chocie a pain.