Question about Datacenters and ESXi hosts

ande0255

I'm setting up my first Datacenter and ESXi objects in vCenter, in my nested lab I have two ESXi hosts, and I am wondering if for the sake of practicing vMotion / FT / other features if I should put the ESXi hosts on two seperate Datacenter objects or both on the same Datacenter.

I'm sure I can go back and adjust if I stick them both on the same Datacenter object and it's not what I need, but was hoping someone could chime in with some perspective on why or why not you'd do it one way or the other.

Thanks!

Essendon

Put both in the same datacenter for now, a datacenter is a vMotion boundary so you wont be able to play with vMotion/DRS etc if you put them in separate datacenters. Put them in different datacenters later for practicing cold migration/importing etc...

kj0

I tend to make 2 in one datacenter (running 5.5) and then a third is a second datacenter running 5.1 - It can provide for showing limitations of mixed sites, etc. and then sometimes will move the 5.1 host into the first DC and move a 5.5 host out to the other for further play.

ande0255

Yeah I'm considering building a whitebox server to run more hosts on, or just purchase a decent tower depending on how much effort I'm feeling like putting into it. The end of chapter 3 of Mastering vSphere 5 as really interesting for me, finally diving into some practical concepts rather than just installation notes, such a welcome relief and got to work with the lab.

Got some wind back in my sails for studying, feels good Kind of considering trading in my laptop back to microcenter for a laptop that can rock 32gb RAM, but holding off to see if I will really need the extra RAM to rock it to the fullest.