Installing vSphere Hypervisor 6.0 Host

[jobseeker95479]

Hi, I am *very* new into virtualization and I am trying to set up my own PC (an HP Omni 220-1180qd) to host VMs by installing vSphere Hypervisor 6.0. The first question I have is by reading through the link https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor am I correct to assume that I need to first install and configure a vSphere host and then install and configure a vSphere client and it is the vSphere client we use to create/manage VMs? If that is correct, can the vSphere host and vSphere client be installed on the same machine? I have downloaded the ESXi ISO image from this link https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi6 and according to the instruction video I need to configure my PC to boot from this iso image. I did this by burning the iso file I downloaded into a CD ROM and select to boot from my DVD drive when I power up my PC. I am running Windows 7 in my PC, to get to the boot menu I have to hit the Esc key when my PC is power up and select boot from my DVD drive. However, my PC still starts up with Windows 7 and I am not seeing the boot up scree as showed in the instruction video. Am I missing something here. Any help will be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Ben

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

first of all, ESXi is a Type-1 Hyprevisor, i.e. installed directly on the hardware (it's actually an operating system). Installing it on a system will overwrite the installation disk!!! Also keep in mind that ESXi is built for server grade hardware, and may not contain all drivers (e.g. network/disk controller) required for your hardware (see http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl for supported hardware).

After installing ESXi, you'll need to configure it's network settings for the Management Network (unless you have DHCP in place). After this you can install the vSpehre Client on a Windows system and access the ESXi host to configure further settings, and to create and run VMs. The vSphere Client itself is only used to manage the ESXi host, all settings are stored on the host.

André

[jobseeker95479]

Thank you for the quick response. As I say I am really new into virtualization so I am not sure what I need to do. Basically I want to be able to spin off Virtual Machine on my home PC (that is running Windows 7) so that I can learn about Linux (and maybe other OS). Sound like vSphere Hypervisor host need to be install on a different machine than the one the VM I want to created on my home PC, I don't think I have enough hardware resource to support that configuration. Can you recommend what other virtualization application I could use for my kind of need? Thanks

[haripadmam]

Hi there, for home testing you can try Virtualization software like VMware Player or Oracle Virtual box which is free and can be installed on top of Windows 7 in your case. Try any of these and let us know if any help required.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/7_0

Oracle VM VirtualBox - Downloads | Oracle Technology Network | Oracle

For VMware player I can see only 64bit version is available. In case you run 32 bit you can download 6.0.

All the Best!

Best Regards,

Hari Narayanan.