General understanding of vSphere products

[bhsfpaul]

Perhaps I am just a little slow but I am trying to figure out what VMware products are needed to setup an enterprise enironment with vSphere. Correct me if I am wrong but with version 3 you would install ESX/ESXi on the sever and install VMware Virtual Center on a server to magage multiple instances. With the newest generation of VMware software I have not been able to figure out if it is the same. It seems you can use ESX/ESXi but is that preferred in large deployments or do you run something else? From what I gather vCenter Server is the mangement piece now and manages instances of vSphere (Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) which is the host OS for the virtual servers. If I am right is vSphere going to be replacing ESX/ESXi or perhaps just targeted at a different segment? If I am wrong is vSphere just a blanket name for multiple products(if so how do you have differet versions of vSphere?)?

[mittim12 · Accepted solution]

vSphere is the name of the suite that includes vCenter, ESX 4, HA, DRS. I might have left a few out but you get the idea. You would use vCenter to manage installations of ESX 4 which in turn would be hosting the virtual machines. The standad, advanced, enterprise and enterprise plus are licensing levels of vSphere. Check out this comparison of the different licenses levels.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

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[bhsfpaul]

That makes much more sense now. I understood that what I listed were licensing levels (even had read the page you linked to) but I did not quite understand that vSphere was a suite. Looking back now it seems so obvious ... oh well. Thanks for the clarification. I really appreciate it.