vCenter Lab Help

[hamidsattarrana]

Hello!

I need some help regarding vCenter lab. Our envoriment is following.

We have 1 vcenter server and 2 clusters. Public and private network configured properly.

I have a windows 10 VM inside those cluster. I installed vmware workstation17 inside windows vm and installed ESXI host on workstation 17. I used the network type as bridge adapter as assign the IP from network as windows vm. But I can only ping this windows vm. I can't ping or access ESXI host outside of this vm?

Any help regarding this?

Thanks in advance.

[Kinnison]

Hello,

Sorry but why make things complicated, if as you wrote you already have a vSphere infrastructure it doesn't take much to perform the "nested" deployment of one (or more than one) ESXi host in the context that already exists. There is some particular reason that pushes you to a setup like this?

Regards,
Ferdiando

[hamidsattarrana]

Hello!

Actually, I want to create a LAB for testing purposes. I have resources in vCenter. But I don't want to touch the existing production infrastructure. All I want to do is to deploy ESXI host and vCenter and I want to test on them.

Thanks

[Kinnison]

Hello,

Got it, probably you should have to enable "promiscuous mode" and accept "Forged transmits" two things that personally in a production context I tend to avoid out of principle and bias and it's one of the reasons why I would avoid using a setup like that because, my very personal approach, because in one way or another I don't want a "test environment" directly or indirectly hosted in my "production context".

Regards,
Ferdinando

[hamidsattarrana]

Hello!

Can you please suggest which option should I go for?

Should I deploy ESXI on existing infrastructure?

Or Should I deploy windows vm then vmware work station then on top of vmware workstation ESXI?

Which option do you recommend?

Thanks.

[Kinnison]

Hello,

Well, although my IT infrastructure can be considered a "homelab" as a test environment I use a physical system with Microsoft Windows 10 pro installed, on which I the installed VMware Workstation PRO 17.5 and then performed the "nested" deployment of some HOSTs runnning ESXi managed by their own vCenter object. By doing this I got rid of a whole series of problems and in any case I get more than decent performance.

You can only decide what to do in your context, mine is just an opinion that reflects "my peculiar way of conceiving and doing IT".
Others rightly use a different approach consistent "with their way of conceiving and doing IT".

Regards,
Ferdinando

[sri959]

Looks NATing required for the EXI host to reach outer network beyond windows. 

[Kinnison]

Hello,

@sri959, The document is not particularly recent but remains valid all the same:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/17/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-122B85E2-E60F-4C44...

Regards,
Ferdinando

[CallistoJag]

Also why not install ESXi directly into the virtual machines 🙂 No sense installing windows, then workstation then esxi 🙂

[hamidsattarrana · Accepted solution]

Hello All! I have an old laptop lenovo t530 with windows 10 and vmware installed.

Specs: Core i7 3740QM, 16GB RAM and 512 SSD EVO 860 Samsung.

I have installed vmware 17 on it. Then installed ESXI and on top of ESXI I have installed vCenter 7. Although the ram is not enough but it's working awesome. 

Thanks all of you for your support.