What Is Vmware Vsphere

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In order to build cloud infrastructures, VMware vSphere, proves to be a strong competitor among many others in the market. It is a virtualization platform that allows executing business applications that are critical to run over a cloud and enables users to take quick actions to fulfill their IT based businesses needs and objectives.

In this article, we will explore that what is VMware vSphere 5.1, what are the components of VMware vSphere 5.1, what are the different editions available of VMware vSphere 5.1, which edition should one choose based on certain needs and size of organization, what are the hardware and software requirements to get it installed, and how to install and configure it?

What is VMware vSphere 5.1?

VMware vSphere 5.1 is the latest version of VMware vSphere released by VMware in 2012. It includes a number of new features and enhancements, making it more reliable and attractive candidate to hasten up the shift of existing datacenters to cloud computing. Due to delivery of high application performance and availability, it is chosen and deployed widely by many system administrators.

What are the software components of VMware vSphere 5.1?

The two core software components of VMware vSphere 5.1 are:

VMware ESX/ESXi

VMware vCenter Server (Both of these Software products are discussed in detail in upcoming articles)

VMware ESX/ESXi offers services of a virtualization platform to allow creating and running virtual machines. Whereas, VMware vCenter Server works as a central administrator on a network that consists of connected ESX/ESXi hosts. Additional features of VMware vSphere 5.1 are offered as vCenter Server plug-ins to enhance the functionality of VMware vSphere 5.1 in specific, consisting typically of a server and a client component. Other software components include:

vCenter Server database

Tomcat Web server

vCenter Server agent

Host agent

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

What are the different editions of VMware vSphere 5.1 available?

VMware vSphere 5.1 consists of a number of editions specific to different business needs and IT objectives. These editions offer a range of different functionalities under different prices making a customer to choose one based on their specific requirements as size of organization and use cases. Following four editions are currently available:

1.      VMware vSphere Standard Edition

While accelerating application deploymemt, VMware vSphere Standard Edition allows cutting down the hardware costs by providing an entry level solution for server consolidation.

2.      VMware vSphere Standard with Operations Management Edition

In order to handle performance and capacity management, the VMware vSphere Standard Edition is enhanced by adding in vCenter Operations Management Suite.

3.      VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition

VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition is provided as a vigorous service to optimize IT assets, to automate and simplify IT operations, and to ensure business continuance with cost-effectiveness.

4.      VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition

VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition allows applications and IT services of current and next generations to run flexibly with each other, thus, offering simpler transformation of datacenters into generalized cloud infrastructures.

In the next article we will discuss how can one choose an edition and how to download and install VMware vSphere 5.1.

Right edition of VMware vSphere 5.1 for you and prerequisite needs-Part 2

Previously, we discussed what VMware vSphere 5.1 is, what its components are, and which different editions of VMware vSphere 5.1 are available. In this article we will discuss that how can one choose an appropriate edition of VMware vSphere 5.1 based on certain needs of their organization, the organization size and the services being offered by that organization. Moreover, we will look into the hardware and software requirements for installing and configuring VMware vSphere 5.1 on the systems.

Which is the right edition for my organization?

In order to help your IT businesses and requirements be accurately served, you need to choose the right edition of VMware vSphere 5.1 for your organization. Therefore, to evaluate which edition serves your requirements right, VMware provides an online questionnaire to fill in by the customer and does the evaluation for him/her. It includes a number of questions about the organization, its required level of availability to be provided, etc.

The questionnaire is available at http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/purchase-advisor/. You need to fill in the questionnaire and the automated purchase advisor concludes the right edition of VMware vSphere 5.1 for you that tones appropriately with you requirements.

What are the hardware and the software requirements to install VMware vSphere 5.1?

Before getting in to the installation and configuration details of VMware vSphere 5.1, we would describe the system requirements of this version; hardware and software, and the requirements of the core components of VMware vSphere 5.1 (discussed in previous articles) for installation.

A list of key requirements to install VMware vSphere 5.1 is given below that we will discuss in detail;

1.      Hardware requirements to install VMware ESXi

2.      Guest operating system support by VMware ESXi

3.      Hardware requirements to install VMware vCenter server and other components of VMware vSphere 5.1

4.      Software requirements for VMware vCenter server

5.      Software requirements for vSphere client and vSphere web client

6.      Space required by System Logging

7.      Ports required for VMware vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance

8.      Requirement of DNS for vSphere

9.      Remote management server models and minimum firmware versions supported by VMware vSphere 5.1

We have discussed the first four points of the requirements of the core components of VMware vSphere 5.1 in detail in the articles related to the introduction and description of VMware ESXi 5.1 and VMware vCenter server 5.1. Therefore, in this article we have included a brief description.

1.  What are the hardware requirements to install VMware ESXi 5.1?

Hardware and System Resources

A list of server platforms supported by VMware ESXi 5.1 can be found at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

Servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.

Host machine with at least two cores.

Only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions.

NX/XD bit for the CPU in the BIOS needs to be enabled.

A list of processors supported by VMware ESXi 5.1 can be found at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

A 2GB of RAM (minimum)

Support of hardware virtualization enabled on x64 CPUs to support 64-bit virtual machines.

A list of supported network adapters can be found at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

Our next articles will cover these requirements.

 

Prerequisite needs for installing VMware vSphere 5.1- Part III

In the previous article we listed the requirements for installing VMware vSphere 5.1; which in turn relates to the hardware and software requirements for installing VMware ESXi 5.1 and VMware vCenter server 5.1. We will briefly discuss these requirements here, and in detail in the articles for VMware ESXi 5.1 and VMware vCenter server 5.1.

In this article we continue to discuss the requirements for installing VMware vSphere 5.1.

2. Which are the guest operating systems supported by VMware ESXi 5.1 and in turn VMware vSphere 5.1?

A list of guest operating systems that are supported by VMware ESXi 5.1 is available at this link http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.

3. What are the hardware requirements to install VMware vCenter server and other components of VMware vSphere 5.1?

As we will discuss these requirements in detail later, we hereby, include brief discussion to these requirements. For key components of VMware vSphere 5.1 as VMware vCenter server, VMware vSphere client, VMware vSphere web client and VMware vCenter Single Sign On, installation can be done on a single host machine or on separate machines.

Hardware requirements for installing VMware vCenter server

A VMware vCenter server requires a 64-bit dual core 2GHz or faster processor or two 64-bit 2GHz or faster CPUs. The memory required for installing VMware vCenter depends on the way VMware vCenter is configured. Having installed VMware vCenter on a different host machine requires a 4GB of RAM, whereas, having it installed on the same machine as VMware vCenter single sign on and VMware vCenter inventory service, requires a 10GB of the RAM.

Similarly, the amount of disk storage also depends on the way VMware vCenter is configured. Having installed VMware vCenter on a different host machine requires a 4GB of disk storage, whereas, having it installed on the same machine as VMware vCenter single sign on and VMware vCenter inventory service, requires at least 40-60GB of hard disk space after installation and around 100 GB should be kept free for the growth of vCenter inventory.

Network speed as much as 1Gbps is sufficient for the installation and a 2GB free disk space is required for decompressing the directory for installation archive.

4. What are the software requirements for installing VMware vCenter server?

To install and use VMware vCenter server, you need to ensure that VMware vCenter server is supported byb the operating system in use. Generally, VMware vCenter server necessitates a 64-bit operating system. A complete list of compatible and supported operating systems can be found at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

5. What are the software requirements for installing vSphere client and vSphere web client?

To install and use VMware vSphere client you first need to make sure the operating system in use supports it. The Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1Framework is essential to install VMware vSphere client on a system. However, if the required framework is not available on the system, it is installed automatically by the VMware vSphere client installer.

VMware vSphere client 5.1 is supported by following versions of browsers:

1.       Google Chrome 14 and later

2.       IE 7, 8 and 9

3.       Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and later.

In the next article, we will continue and complete discussing these requirements.

 

You need VMware ESXi 5.1 to get going with VMware vSphere 5.1

Being the core component of VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware ESXi 5.1 was included in the release of VMware vSphere 5.1. Therefore, we will include a detailed description in our articles about what VMware ESXi is, what are the different ways to get it installed on the systems, what are the hardware and software requirements to install it and which guest operating systems are supported by VMware ESXi 5.1.

What is VMware ESXi?

VMware ESX/ESXi is a computer virtualization product released by VMware Inc. It offers services of a virtualization platform to allow creating and running virtual machines and being the core component of VMware vSphere 5.1, adds management and reliability to it. VMware ESXi 5.1 acts as software hypervisor to enable guest virtual servers that run on the hardware host server without the requirement of an additional operating system.

What are the different ways to install VMware ESXi 5.1?

VMware ESXi 5.1 provides with four different ways to install VMware ESXi 5.1 host listed as below;

Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 host interactively

Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 host using a host

Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 host through auto deploy

Moreover, customized installation of Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 host can be carried by using ESXi Image Builder CLI. We will discuss each of these methods in detail in our upcoming articles. Before going into the details of installation of Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 host you need to know if your system is capable of the installation. Therefore, we will discuss the hardware and the software system requirements as well as the guest operating systems supported by Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 host.

Which guest operating system is supported by Installing VMware ESXi 5.1?

Several 64-bit guest operating systems are supported by Installing VMware ESXi 5.1. A list of these 64-bit guest operating systems supported by Installing VMware ESXi 5.1 can be found here; http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.

VMware also provides you with the CPU identification utility, which can be downloaded from VMware website, using which you can evaluate whether or not your server has 64-bit VMware support. Following are the two basic requirements for hosts that run virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating system;

1.      Opteron Rev E or later (for AMD Opteron based systems), and

2.      Support for Intel Virtualization Technology (for Intel Xeon based systems).

What are the hardware requirements for VMware ESXi 5.1?

In order to install VMware ESXi 5.1 on your system, you first need to make sure that your system is comprised of the minimum hardware configurations that are supported by VMware ESXi 5.1.

We will discuss these requirements in detail under following sections:

Hardware and system resources,

Storage systems supported by VMware ESXi 5.1, and

VMware ESXi 5.1 booting requirements.

In the next articles, we will focus on the requirements for installing VMware ESXi 5.1 and will discuss each of the points as mentioned above as well as the three different methods for installing VMware ESXi 5.1 according to one’s own ease. Moreover, we will also discuss how ESXi systems can be provisioned.