Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
A lot of the answers to these questions are dependent on each other, but we have to start
somewhere, so we'll start with the i rst topic: i guring out how much hardware you need for
vCenter Server.
Sizing Hardware for vCenter Server
The amount of hardware that vCenter Server requires is directly related to the number of hosts
and VMs it will be managing. This planning and design consideration applies only to the
Windows Server-based version of vCenter Server; because it is a prepackaged virtual appli-
ance, the virtual hardware of the vCenter Server virtual appliance is predei ned and established
before it is deployed.
As a starting point, the minimum hardware requirements for the Windows Server-based
version of vCenter Server are as follows:
Two 64-bit CPUs or a single dual-core 64-bit CPU.
◆
◆
2 GHz processor or faster.
4 GB of RAM or more.
◆
4 GB of free disk space.
◆
A network adapter (Gigabit Ethernet strongly recommended).
◆
◆
A supported version of Windows (Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2,
Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2); vCenter Server 5 requires a 64-bit ver-
sion of Windows.
Keep in mind these are
minimum
system requirements. Large enterprise environments with
many ESXi hosts and VMs must scale the vCenter Server system accordingly.
Local Disks on vCenter Server
Disk storage allocation is of minimal concern when planning a vCenter Server installation because
the data is generally stored in an SQL or Oracle database on a remote server.
In addition, the requirements for the Windows Server-based edition of vCenter Server do not
account for running a database server, which vCenter Server requires. Although vCenter Server
is the application that performs the management of your ESXi hosts and VMs, vCenter Server
uses a database for storing all of its coni guration, permissions, statistics, and other data.
Figure 3.4 shows the relationship between vCenter Server and the separate database server.
When answering the question of how much hardware vCenter Server requires, you have to
address the computer running vCenter Server and the one running the components it depends
on, which include the following components:
Database server
◆
Single Sign-On server
◆
