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