Lab Manager VS VMware VirtualCenter Management Server

[LmarkJW]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me what benefits and functionality you would loose if you manage your ESX hosts though Lab manager over VC management server, including licence costs etc? as reading the installation guide for Lab Manager you cant use both (which would make sense in a way) what senario would you use both?

Incidentally Lab Manager does not support ESX3.5 yet.

Extract from labmanager251_Installation_Guide.pdf :

"You can use VMware VirtualCenter Management Server (VirtualCenter Server) to monitor ESX Server systems managed by Lab Manager. However, all VirtualCenter Server actions that register or unregister Lab Manager virtual machines (including those triggered by VMware HA and VMware VMotion^TM can cause errors in Lab Manager. :smileyangry:

VMware recommends managing ESX Server systems with Lab Manager or VirtualCenter Server, but not both. Avoid installing Lab Manager on the same system as VirtualCenter Server to avoid performance complications."

Thanks a lot !

[LmarkJW]

Ok to answer my own question. In almost all circumstances you'd have two separate environments. One cluster of hosts for VI and one for Lab manager. They will I'm sure add Lab manager as an "Add On" in the near future to VC managment.