Datasheet

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EXPLORING VMWARE VSPHERE 5
|
5
Table 1.2: VMware ESXi Maximums
Component
VMware ESXi
5 Maximum
VMware ESX/
ESXi 4.0 Maximum
VMware ESX 3.5
Maximum
Number of virtual CPUs
per host
2048
512 128
Number of cores per host 160 64 32
Number of logical CPUs
(hyperthreading enabled)
160
64 32
Number of virtual CPUs
per core
25 20 (increased to 25 in
Update 1)
8 (increased to 20 in Update 3)
Amount of RAM per host 2 TB 1 TB
128 GB (increased to 256 GB in
Update 3)
I’m Only Talking VMware ESXi 5 Here
Throughout this book, I’ll refer only to ESXi. It’s true that some of the information I present in this
book could apply to earlier versions of the product and thus could potentially apply to VMware ESX
as well as VMware ESXi. However, I will refer only to ESXi throughout this book, and the informa-
tion presented will have been tested only with VMware ESXi 5.
VMWARE VCENTER SERVER
Stop for a moment to think about your current network. Does it include Active Directory? There
is a good chance it does. Now imagine your network without Active Directory, without the ease
of a centralized management database, without the single sign-on capabilities, and without the
simplicity of groups. That is what managing VMware ESXi hosts would be like without using
VMware vCenter Server. Not a very pleasant thought, is it? Now calm yourself down, take a
deep breath, and know that vCenter Server, like Active Directory, is meant to provide a central-
ized management utility for all ESXi hosts and their respective VMs. vCenter Server allows IT
administrators to deploy, manage, monitor, automate, and secure a virtual infrastructure in a
centralized fashion. To help provide scalability, vCenter Server leverages a backend database
(Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle are both supported, among others) that stores all the data
about the hosts and VMs.
In previous versions of VMware vSphere, vCenter Server was a Windows-only applica-
tion. Version 5 of vSphere still offers this Windows-based installation of vCenter Server.
However, in this version VMware adds a prebuilt vCenter Server appliance (a virtual appli-
ance, in fact, something you’ll learn about in Chapter 10, “Using Templates and vApps”
that is based on Linux. The delivery of a Linux-based vCenter Server is a deliverable that
VMware has been discussing for quite some time, and it’s nice to see it fi nally arrive in
vSphere 5!
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