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VMware vCenter Server for home lab?

A

AMD_Gamer

Fully [H]
Joined
Jan 20, 2002
Messages
18,287
How do you install the vCenter server, can you install it on a normal Windows 7 machine like the vSphere client? Is there a free trial of the vCenter server?

How do people go about learning about the vCenter server in a lab environment?
 
It's just a regular exe installer that has to be installed on a 64-bit OS. Win7 isn't supported though, has to be either XP x64, 2k3 x64, or 2k8 x64: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1022101

You'll also need SQL express for the backend, which can be installed on the same box.

It comes as a 60 day free trial if you don't put in a license key. After that, rebuild again for another 60 days. Unfortunately VMware doesn't have a good licensing option that is similar to Technet...I really wish they did. It would make it so much easier for those of us who run it for home labs
 
devvoid said:
It's just a regular exe installer that has to be installed on a 64-bit OS. Win7 isn't supported though, has to be either XP x64, 2k3 x64, or 2k8 x64: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1022101

You'll also need SQL express for the backend, which can be installed on the same box.

It comes as a 60 day free trial if you don't put in a license key. After that, rebuild again for another 60 days. Unfortunately VMware doesn't have a good licensing option that is similar to Technet...I really wish they did. It would make it so much easier for those of us who run it for home labs
Click to expand...

Does it install SQL express itself or do you need to do that separately?
 
AMD_Gamer said:
Does it install SQL express itself or do you need to do that separately?
Click to expand...
It's bundled with it. So you can have it install sql express on the same box or point it to another instance. For home lab purposes the sql express install works fine.

@mindflux- I believe I ended up paying $200 for technet last time I renewed with a coupon.
 
Thanks , I read through the readme for the install and the included SQL express is recommended for environments with up to 5 hosts and 50 VM's, way more than I would ever use here.

Now does anyone run this off a VM inside a host you want to manage with vCenter server? In the readme it says they recommend doing this?
 
Yes, a lot of people use virtualized vCenters. That's the current VMware best practice since you can protect it with HA and FT. I have several small customers using SQL Express in prod..just be careful you don't hit the 10GB database limit. There is a sizing tool to estimate your DB size after a year that's useful for checking that.
 
NetJunkie said:
Yes, a lot of people use virtualized vCenters. That's the current VMware best practice since you can protect it with HA and FT. I have several small customers using SQL Express in prod..just be careful you don't hit the 10GB database limit. There is a sizing tool to estimate your DB size after a year that's useful for checking that.
Click to expand...

what fills up the database, is it the performance logs?
 
NetJunkie said:
Yes, a lot of people use virtualized vCenters. That's the current VMware best practice since you can protect it with HA and FT. I have several small customers using SQL Express in prod..just be careful you don't hit the 10GB database limit. There is a sizing tool to estimate your DB size after a year that's useful for checking that.
Click to expand...
This is what happened to us. We run vCenter as a VM in prod, but filled up the DB pretty fast. When upgrading from 3.5-->4.1 I moved to regular SQL, but the actual service runs great in a VM.
 
devvoid said:
This is what happened to us. We run vCenter as a VM in prod, but filled up the DB pretty fast. When upgrading from 3.5-->4.1 I moved to regular SQL, but the actual service runs great in a VM.
Click to expand...

Just be careful if you run vCenter virtualized along with Distributed switches on your hosts. You can run into problems if vCenter goes down since you can no longer assign VM's to the dvswitch port groups.
 
Child of Wonder said:
Just be careful if you run vCenter virtualized along with Distributed switches on your hosts. You can run into problems if vCenter goes down since you can no longer assign VM's to the dvswitch port groups.
Click to expand...

Yep. Same with the Nexus 1000v. vCenter isn't as disposable as it used to be.
 
some place with 400+ hosts must be a crazy place to work. They should have the home lab option when installing lol
 
I got the server up and running but i get this when trying to add a host,

lM1up.jpg
 
Try removing the vpxuser account from that host and then re-adding it. I've seen that error before and I believe that fixed it.

Are these ESXi 4.1 hosts btw?
 
userdel vpxuser will remove the account. Once you try to add the host back to vCenter, it should automatically create that account for you
 
the ipmi problem was probably causing this, i just added my host to the server without any trouble:D
 
Nice, glad to hear it! I'll be picking up two of those mobo's soon so it sounds like I might be doing that same procedure
 
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