VCP5 studies / VMware vCenter Server Appliance

I'm proud to report I've recently been promoted to a new role after having humped the helpdesk for almost 5 yrs. More than one person I know suggested I was wasting my time after 3yrs on the helpdesk but I stuck with it and I'm happy to report my employer promoted me to our Cloud team, where I'm currently supporting a Citrix CloudPlatform deployment and eventually I'll be part of the smaller group that works on our VCE VBlock platform.

Of course, with little previous experience with VMware (I've used vSphere 4 and ESXI 4 in the past but it was a single server deployment), I've got lots to learn which is why I got myself a VCP book and figured I might as well start reading.

First of all, I intend to go the VMware workstation route (run workstation on my Win7 PC and install ESXI in it) and I was wondering if anyone had any bad experiences doing so or if anyone knows of any reason(s) why I shouldn't go that route and instead find some dedicated hardware for the task. The following article explains how to do so:

Installing ESXi 5.x in VMware Workstation | VMware Support Insider - VMware Blogs

And although there are limitations, they don't sound like anything which would prevent me from moving forward with my labs (VMs inside esxi will be 32bit).

Second, I'm having a difficult time figuring out how I can obtain an evaluation license so I can download vCenter Server appliance. I couldn't find the right evaluation to signup for and if I go to the download page for the files I need, I'm told I'm not entitled to those files. Does anyone know how I would (or if it's even possible) obtain an evaluation license for VMware vCenter? I'm interested in installing the appliance version and this is of course for educational purposes (studying for VCP5).

TIA!

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Comments

Essendon

Congrats on the promotion!

Installing ESXi inside Workstation is the route most people take, I went with nesting ESXi inside of ESXi. But either method works well, so you are good to go. You'll need a minimum of 2 ESXi VM's and shared storage to play with the good stuff (HA/DRS/FT/SDRS etc). For shared storage, just create a Windows VM and install something like a Starwind iSCSI SAN and you have shared storage for your ESXi VM's. You'll need a 64bit machine in either method and lots of RAM, though you can get by quite easily with 8GB.

vCenter is definitely available as a eval download. Dunno where you're looking but here's the link: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/5_1

Grab the Enterprise Plus license which is just over half way down the page. You have the vCenter appliance as well as vCenter Windows version available for download, take your pick. Though from what I remember, the test is based on the Windows version. But you may have a question or two about the appliance.

phatrik

Hi Essendon,

Thank you for the quick reply.

To provide more details on my problem:

Yes I see the download link for VMware vCenter Server and modules but when I enter the download page and I click on Manually download, the new page I'm brought to has all its download links greyed out and I see a message saying I'm not entitled to the software download.

I was (mis?)informed by someone I just spoke to on the phone at a vmware call center that vmware vcenter is licensed separately from ESXi or vSphere but when I go to https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware I don't see an evaluation for vmware vcenter. I did see one for "vSphere with Operations Mangement" which seems to also include vmware vcenter. Tried to register for the eval but I keep getting a generic error with no details. Cleared my browser's cache and cookies and restarted the browser but I get the same error.

TIA

Essendon

Yeah I've had the same issue too with all links being grayed out. To get around it, I created a new account at vmware.com and the links then came alive. Their system seems to remember your previous download attempts. So just use a new account.

The two products may be licensed separately but the eval downloads are on the same page. Looks like they misinterpreted your question.

phatrik

This is a new account I just created today, I don't see that as being the problem. Thanks again for your quick answers.

Essendon

Unsure why it's still happening then. Perhaps wait a day and try again tomorrow. Try downloading at another computer maybe? I dont know what to suggest.

Mikdilly

I get the same error when trying to download vcenter appliance, maybe it's because i turned down their survey, they're a vindictive lot.