Dev Enviorment At Home

[nxion]

Hello,

I am hopeing that someone can answer this for me. I want to start to learn more about vsphere, esxi, vcenter and how it works. I have recently was taksed as a backup administrator for our virtual enviorment but I am kinda un fimialre with all this, I have a machine at home that I can install ESXi on so I have part  if it done. Below are the specs for the machine. Its not a server class machine per say but it is the best I can do and I know tthat I will be limited in what I can do.

I wanted to know if there is a free vcenter vapp or is it something I need to get a trial license for?

ALSO, I heard that there is a webclient for vsphere so I can uise that instead of the heavy windows client. That is the only reason why I have a windows vm on my mac is for the heavy vsphere client.

Thanks in advance.

MACHINE SPECS:

AMD 2.8GHz Quad Core Processor   

4 GB 1600MHZ Ram

5 SATA Hard Drives

     1 - 750GB

     2 - 750GB

     3 - 500GB

     4 - 500GB

     5 - 640GB

1 SATA ENterprise Drive RAPTOR 10K RPM

1 Gigabit Nic

[vmroyale]

Memory is going to be tight on that system.

You can get a 60-day eval/trial license of vCenter Server. This will allow you to install the vSphere Web Client as well.

[nxion]

Is the Web client a stantalone clinet or does it have to be installed on the vcenter server?

[vmroyale]

It is actually a web server that typically gets installed on the same piece system as the vCenter Server software. Then you access the web server from your supported web browser.