What is VMWare vCenter????

[Johnny1Wang]

I have an ESXi 4.1 U1 server and have been using vSphere Client. I have been looking into vMotion but can’t find any info. The Migration Wizard is nowhere to be found and in the vShere Client there is a link that says “Manage this host through VMware vCenter” under Host Management. When I click on the link it takes me to this web page https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/downloads which has nothing about ESXi 4 and nothing that seems to work with it.

Anyone have any idea?

[logiboy123]

ESXi can be used as a standalone server and for a lot of people this is a good solution.

If you want advanced functionality and to cluster up ESXi nodes then you need vCenter Server which is the command and control server to manage hosts amongst other tasks. vCenter is a licensed product and when you add ESXi hosts to it for management you will need to buy a license for those hosts as well.

Regards,

Paul

[Johnny1Wang]

I installed vCenter Server trial and, to me, it appeared to only be a Windows version of ESX so I promptly deleted it. So I guess that was an incorrect assumption?

[Troy_Clavell]

see VMware definition of vCenter:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-server/overview.html

[weinstein5]

Correct - vCenter is a Windows applications that will allow you to manage multiple ESX/ESXi hosts from one location

[Johnny1Wang]

ok, thanks for the help.