As per reference architecture from vCenter 5.5 Deployment Guide Whitepaper http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vcenter/VMware-vCenter-Server-5.5-Technical-Whitepaper.pdf
The recommended approach in almost all scenarios involves a single VM for vCenter & separate VM for Database.
All vCenter components (SSO, Web Client, Inventory, vCenter) in 1 VM.
The recommendation (soft recommendation) to centralize SSO+Web Client is when you have 8+ vCenter Servers.
When to Centralize vCenter Single Sign-On Server 5.5 | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs
Regarding Web Client performance, you can increase the JVM Heap Size for Web Client as the default is 1GB.
Use these Kbs on how to configure the JVM settings:
VMware KB: Configuring Tomcat server settings in VMware vCenter Server 5.1 and 5.5
See also these posts on how to increase Web Client performance:
Very slow performance with the vSphere Web Client
Re: Vsphere webclient 5.5 very very slow, any solutions?
Re: How to speed up vSphere Web Client
Hi,
how big is your environment? How many Hosts/VMs?
In small to mid sized installations, I don't see any problems with the web client installed on the vCenter Server.
Do you use the Windows version of vCenter?
What's the CPU/RAM assigned to the VM?
Regards
Tim
10 hosts with 300+ vms using HA
specs: 4 CPUs 16 GB RAM
As per reference architecture from vCenter 5.5 Deployment Guide Whitepaper http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vcenter/VMware-vCenter-Server-5.5-Technical-Whitepaper.pdf
The recommended approach in almost all scenarios involves a single VM for vCenter & separate VM for Database.
All vCenter components (SSO, Web Client, Inventory, vCenter) in 1 VM.
The recommendation (soft recommendation) to centralize SSO+Web Client is when you have 8+ vCenter Servers.
When to Centralize vCenter Single Sign-On Server 5.5 | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs
Regarding Web Client performance, you can increase the JVM Heap Size for Web Client as the default is 1GB.
Use these Kbs on how to configure the JVM settings:
VMware KB: Configuring Tomcat server settings in VMware vCenter Server 5.1 and 5.5
See also these posts on how to increase Web Client performance:
Very slow performance with the vSphere Web Client
Re: Vsphere webclient 5.5 very very slow, any solutions?
Re: How to speed up vSphere Web Client