Vcenter server without physical Domain controller.

[royml]

situation:

- small environment with only virtual Domain Controllers and member servers

- vCenter server on virtual server (member server)

- only 1 physical VCP proxy server

1. As far as i understood vCenter server needs Active Directory to start. So when starting everything manually is it then necessary to start a virtual Domain Controller first (with the vSphere Client) and after that the vCenter server?

2. Is this a workable solution or do i need to have a physical domain controller?

3. And when choosing a physical server with vCenter i need another physical Active Directory server right?

[marcelo_soares]

1. As far as i understood vCenter server needs Active Directory to start. So when starting everything manually is it then necessary to start a virtual Domain Controller first (with the vSphere Client) and after that the vCenter server?

You are right.

2. Is this a workable solution or do i need to have a physical domain controller?

You don't need at all a physical one.

3. And when choosing a physical server with vCenter i need another physical Active Directory server right?

Not at all, you can keep the AD virtual. Only if you have a downtime on your AD accounts will not be able to login to vCenter. After you have restablished the AD server, everything will work fine.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

[sarank]

Hi Royml,

All your planing are workable.Just some idea to run that environment smoothly.

1.If the domain controller is dedicated for VC means,you dont worrie about to login VC and other stuff.

a.Just log in to esx server through Vi client and start the VM(domain controller)

b.After you can log in to VC

2.If you are thinking about physical server

a.you can go for Domain controller on Physical server and VC can install on virtual machine with (FT)

Note: Not recomended for VC and domain controller on the same server.

If its correct or helpfull,please mention it to get the points.

Saravanan.k

MCSA,MCTS,CCNP,VCP(310/410)