Managing Multiple Hosts With Vcenter Server; Vsphere And Vcenter Server - VMware ESX 4.0 - GETTING STARTED UPDATE 1 Getting Started

Getting Started with ESX
3 Select a virtual appliance from the list and click Download now.
For the shortest download time, VMware recommends that you chose a small virtual appliance.
4 Click Next and follow the on-screen instructions to import the virtual appliance.
After you import the virtual appliance, you can use the Console tab in the vSphere Client to power it on and
view it. To release the pointer from the Console, press Ctrl+Alt. To view the Console in full screen mode, from
the Inventory, right-click the virtual machine and select Open Console.
What to do next
You have completed setup for a single-host management system in which ESX is used to run virtual machines.
Explore the advantages of managing multiple hosts with vCenter Server.

Managing Multiple Hosts with vCenter Server

You can deploy VMware vSphere with vCenter Server to manage multiple hosts at the same time.
Using vCenter Server to manage multiple hosts allows you to experiment with advanced management options,
such as resource sharing, and all of the other options available within the vSphere environment.
Deploying vCenter Server provides many advantages over deploying a single, standalone ESX host.
illustrates some of the advantages and compares multiple-host management with vCenter Server as opposed
to single-host management.
Table 1. Comparison of Multiple and Single Host Management
Feature
Scale of deployment
Capacity planning
Server consolidation wizard
Instant server provisioning
No downtime maintenance
Load balancing
Failover
Power savings
Centralized access control

vSphere and vCenter Server

VMware vSphere is a suite of virtualization applications that includes ESX and vCenter Server.
vSphere uses virtualization to do the following tasks:
Run multiple operating systems on a single physical machine simultaneously.
n
Reclaim idle resources and balance workloads across multiple physical machines.
n
Work around hardware failures and scheduled maintenance.
n
14
vCenter Server
Multiple hosts
Built in
Built in
Available with templates and cloning
Possible with VMotion
Possible with VMware DRS
Possible with VMware HA
Possible with VMware Distributed Power
Management (DPM)
Available with Active Directory
Integration
Table 1
ESX
Single host
Available separately
Available separately
Not available
Not available
Not available
Not available
Not available
Not available
VMware, Inc.