vSphere 6.5 Enterprise Pro access

[Nightdragon15]

Hello everyone,

I am new to VMware, I have been mostly using Hyper-V at school, but my Professor told me that VMware is what is mostly used in the industry. I have a one year license for vSphere 6.5 Enterprise Pro through my school. I was using my Alienware Aurora R4 as a windows server for my VMs and decided to change that machine over to an ESXi 6.5 Server. When I tried to install I got the dreaded no network card driver error, so I found a script online to package the drivers into a new ISO. This obviously changed what I was given from my school software, but it worked and I now have ESXi 6.5.0 client version 1.27.2 installed. I understand how to create the VMs and access them remotely through my VMware Workstation Pro and have had no problems creating a few virtual switches to accommodate my VMs. I was also able to convert my Hyper-V VMs over to VMware and get them on the server. So here is my question:

How do I access vSphere and all of the other benefits that come with the Enterprise version?

[daphnissov]

You'd need to install vCenter Server, connect your ESXi host to be managed by said vCenter Server, and begin to use vCenter directly rather than your host directly.

[Nightdragon15]

I found this site for the download (it looks to be the most recent one for my version)

Download VMware vSphere

Can you tell me which one I would download? Will I run into the problem with the drivers again? Also do I install this as a server on my ESXi server?

Thank you for your help.

[IRIX201110141]

The VMware vCenter Server Appliance named "VCSA". But you need a license for it.... and for all the vSphere magic you need a 2nd Host if you would like to play around with the HA,vMotion,FT stuff.

vCenter alone gives you

- Templates and Cloning

- Host Profiles

- Update Manager

- Folders

- Permissions

- Distributed Switch

- Alarming and Historical Data

and much more

Its that what MS gives you with SystemCenter.

If your Host is Powerfull enough i have seen a lot of people who run VMware Workstation with 2 virtualized ESXi Hosts, vCenter...  Also emulating a vSAN should be possible.

Btw: There is vSphere 6.7 available also. You can use VCSA 6.7u1 together with a ESXi 6.5 Host.

Regards,

Joerg

[Nightdragon15]

Thank you, I will have to contact VMware because when I tried to download it, it says i don't have permission to download it. Maybe I have to register my license with them first somehow so i can download it. It is something that should be included with a vSphere enterprise pro license.