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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

vcentre dependency?

Hello everyone. 

 

I have adopted a small vcentre 6.5 environment and from my understanding and reading, from 6.5 onwards, the vsphere client is all but gone and instead they use a web browser. 

Within the environment there is a vsphere vm that you have to point to the connect to the environment.  Is there a way to detach that/remove that and then point it to something else? Such as the hosts itself? Is there a reason that there's a dependency on that particular server? 

I don't have access to the hosting solutions to see the config, if that will indeed give me any information.  I don't have a technical map for this (I am trying to get one and relevant documentation.)

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

vCenter Server only manages the environment, the VMs themselves run on ESXi hosts, which are connected to that vCenter Server instance. VMs can be registered on the environment as needed, but limited to those hosts which have access to the storage location on which the VM (i.e. the files that make up the VM) are stored.

André

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If I just shut that server down, there won't be any problems accessing the environment?  Is there a way to make an instance of the hosts dependent on an instance of vsphere on a server?  If that made sense??

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ashilkrishnan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi @Ineedhelpbadly,

As mentioned by 'a_p_', vCenter is just a management server. It lets you manage multiple ESXi host under one interface and provides additional cluster management features. Even if you shutdown vCenter server, you don't loose access to ESXi hosts and VMs running on these hosts.

If you still have any confusion, you can connect to any of the ESXi hosts IP address via browser and login using root credentials. This will show you all storage and VMs it has access to.

I am not sure what you mean by -  instance of the hosts dependent on an instance of vsphere on a server

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Ineedhelpbadly
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Enthusiast

That's what I thought, but the company are saying that the  *NEED* that vsphere server to connect to their environment.  I have stated that it can be shut down and it wouldn't affect anything. Before I commit myself to thinking I am right, I want to make sure that what i have read is correct and accurate.  Not go to the company and look stupid.

But they're being difficult and saying  that without that server, they couldn't access their vms. This is why I am asking, if there's any dependence on that server.  From reading the release notes of 6.5 last night, it appears that you access everything via a web browser.  Which indicates that it can be turned off with no impact.

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ZibiM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm sorry, but you are wrong

vCenter server is central point of management of the Vmware environment.

Yes, you can run even quite modest environment using standalone ESXi servers, but trust me - you'd really fast start to wish you don't need to that.

vCenter server does not only provide central point of access to the VM consoles

It can also support or provide the services like:

DRS (distributed load balancing)

vMotion / svMotion

vDS (distributed vswitch)

VSAN

vCenter server is also usually single point of integration with the backup.

Shortly turning off vCenter will have the impact

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Everything is run by a browser though.  They did away with the vsphere client.

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ZibiM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Browser is just for client ui - for displaying things that administrators or users are seeying

The service you are connecting the browser to, and the thing responsible for providing the details of what you see is running on the vCenter server

It was the same with the vsphere client - old vsphere client also used https to connect to the vCenter server

vCenter server is simply a SPOC - single point of contact to administer your whole Vsphere environment.

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can I just throw vcentre on another domain and point to the environment?

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Ardaneh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Having a VC is more beneficial than ignoring it, it's obvious. to protect your VC, you have some options such as VCHA and backup solutions (it is a virtualized environment, so restoring a VM is not time-consuming but it depends on your infrastructure) You need to protect your VC and get benefits from it! but if you lost your VC for any reason, you have enough time to restore it or even deploy it from scratch. At that time you only lose DRS functionality but you will have hosts HA (if you had configured that before), your network connections are stable and there will be no side effects on your VMs directly. If you have vSAN, you don't need to be worry! vSAN will be available if you lose your VC. vSAN continues to operate normally and virtual machines continue to run. When VC is offline, the main disadvantage is we lose the full-featured functionality of the vSphere Web Client until VC is back online. Cheers
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Ardaneh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi

Having a VC is more beneficial than ignoring it, it's obvious. to protect your VC, you have some options such as VCHA and backup solutions (it is a virtualized environment, so restoring a VM is not time-consuming but it depends on your infrastructure)

You need to protect your VC and get benefits from it! but if you lost your VC for any reason, you have enough time to restore it or even deploy it from scratch. At that time you only lose DRS functionality but you will have hosts HA (if you had configured that before), your network connections are stable and there will be no side effects on your VMs directly. If you have vSAN, you don't need to be worry! vSAN will be available if you lose your VC. vSAN continues to operate normally and virtual machines continue to run.
When VC is offline, the main disadvantage is we lose the full-featured functionality of the vSphere Web Client until VC is back online.

Cheers

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ZibiM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I don't know if I'm reading you correctly

1. Yes - you can host vCenter outside the environment it manages. In big environments you can even have dedicated vcenter for managment only that hosts vCenter servers that are supporting business environments.

2. If you have multiple vCenters you can try to consolidate - disconnect ESXi servers from small vCenter and attach them somewhere else

If these options are viable in your scenario it's hard to tell without knowing details.

Also there always be a valid question why this change is being made.

Sometimes multiple vCenters are needed because of several valid reasons

I have like 10+ vCenters and will be deploying another in next week, because it is needed

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

There's only about 30 vms in their environment.  But the company is saying that the server with vcentre on must be kept.  Which i am thinking that's not the case.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Well without details about the environment, it's not really possible to answer your questions.

Although the VMs do not need vCenter Server to run, it may be required anyway. vCenter Server has many features which make managing an environment easier, and also provides features like vMotion, HA, ... It may also be required by third party tools like a VM based backup application.
Almost every virtual environment in which I work, has one, or more vCenter Server instances running.

André

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What would you like to know?

I am looking at the hosts and they all seem to have the same ipv4 address.  But, that IP addresses points to a windows server.  Is that an ordinary setup?  I thought you pointed vcenter to the esxi install.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

>>> I am looking at the hosts and they all seem to have the same ipv4 address.

Not exactly sure what you are looking at, but that's impossible (at least for a working environment). Each system, be it vCenter Server, an ESXi host, or any other system needs to have its own unique IP address.

André

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Here, as attached, they all point to the same server.  Which is the vcentre server. Can I not just build a new one and point it to the new vcentre server?

 

vcentre.PNG

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ZibiM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

You are showing the configuration of the default gateway.

Please do not make any decisions regarding the environment setup.

I'm sorry, but you are not qualified to do that.

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I know this, but I have been tasked this. I can't do much about it.  I come from a infrastructure/monitoring environment.  I don't come from a vm background.

This is why I am trying to get to grips with how things work.  Thanks for the input though.

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ZibiM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Understood

And feel bit sorry for you

In your case please think about vcenter server as central monitoring solution ("umbrella") , and about esxi servers as local monitoring points

You can get by using several local monitoring points at the same time to get a grip on the things, but if you want to have global awareness of your environment, if you want to have some kind of redundancy, then central umbrella is needed

Please get back to my comment about services provided by the vcenter (HA, DRS, vmotion, backup integration) and ask yourself if these features are important for this environment.

In 99% of production environments HA, DRS and backup are a must have.

Yours should be the same

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