vSphere and vCenter difference.

[dou2ble]

If vSphere is for managing virtual servers on a esxi server, is vCenter is for managing more than 1 esxi server? Making vCenter a datacenter management tool. If this is correct, is there than something for managing multiple vCenters (datacenters)? If my terminology is incorrect also please correct it. Thanks.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

You have the names a little mixed up. vSphere is the marketing/product name. The main components of vSphere are ESX(i)4, vCenter4, and the vSphere4 Client.

The client would be used for single standalone management of your ESX(i) Hosts, while vCenter provides a central point of managment for 1 or more ESX(i) Hosts.

below may help a bit too

http://www.vmware.com/support/product_renaming.html

[dou2ble]

Thank you. That clears it up for me.

[JaySMX]

vSphere 4 is the overall term for the family of ESX 4 and vCenter 4 together. ESX/ESXi 4 is the hypervisor that run on each server and provides the abstraction layer upon which virtual machines run. Generically, it manages resources of the server and enforces restrictions and reservations which are configured either locally for that ESX instance or that are configured on a vCenter server which manages it. vCenter is the management tool which runs on a Windows server and manages one or many ESX hosts, allows you to configure clusters, HA, DRS, perform vMotions and more. With vSphere, you can configure multiple vCenter servers in linked-mode, which allows you to manage multipe vCenter servers from one interface.

That's very broad, but hopefully it helps a bit.

-Justin, VCP3/4, MCSE

[dou2ble]

Thanks.