ESXi, vSphere, vCenter Can you explain the correlation?

ITVince

I'm very new to virtualization, just familiar with setting up basic VMWare Workstations for test labs. However at work, higher up sys admins are looking into virtualizing servers company wide where it will prove cost effective. I've been reading through setup documentation and I see common references such as ESXi, vSphere, vCenter

Here's my basic understanding thus far....

ESXi is a O/S independent install that you install on a beefed up "host" server, say 64GB RAM, yadda yadda.

This host server is then attached to a SAN device, and this SAN device houses your data stores for your various virtual machines you want to install.

Then is vSphere just a client that allows you to access / manage / configure your VM's?

Where does a vCenter come in to play here? Ours is apparently housed at corporate in another state...what is its central role?

Just looking for a high level 30,000 foot view of how this software is setup and relates to one another in a corporate enviornment for curiosities sake. Thanks guys look forward to your responses

vCole

ITVince wrote: »

I'm very new to virtualization, just familiar with setting up basic VMWare Workstations for test labs. However at work, higher up sys admins are looking into virtualizing servers company wide where it will prove cost effective. I've been reading through setup documentation and I see common references such as ESXi, vSphere, vCenter

Here's my basic understanding thus far....

ESXi is a O/S independent install that you install on a beefed up "host" server, say 64GB RAM, yadda yadda.

This host server is then attached to a SAN device, and this SAN device houses your data stores for your various virtual machines you want to install.

Then is vSphere just a client that allows you to access / manage / configure your VM's?

Where does a vCenter come in to play here? Ours is apparently housed at corporate in another state...what is its central role?

Just looking for a high level 30,000 foot view of how this software is setup and relates to one another in a corporate enviornment for curiosities sake. Thanks guys look forward to your responses

ESX/ESXi is the hypervisor, so yes it is the OS that you install on the host. The host server can use iSCSI SAN, FC SAN, NAS/NFS and Direct Attached Storage.

VMware vSphere Client is used to manage a single host or connect to the vCenter Server. A vCenter Server allows you to manage multiple hosts/Clusters/DRS/HS/Multiple Sites/etc.Basically, this is your main point of management for your virtual infrastructure.

vSphere is actually the name of the OS + extras (or bundle), the VMware vSphere Client is what you actually use for connecting to hosts/vCenter Servers.