In last post of this series we had an overview of VCSA and touched a little bit on what are the new features that are included in VCSA v6.5.

In this post we will discuss about available deployment models for vcenter Server and VCSA.

If you have missed earlier post of this series, you can read them from here:

1: Installing and Configuring Esxi

2: VCSA Overview

Windows based vCenter Server or VCSA can be deployed either with an embedded PSC or an external PSC. You can also deploy a PSC as an appliance or install it on Windows. Depending on your infrastructure needs, it can be mix and match of both.

Before proceeding with installation of vCenter Server Appliance or vCenter Server for Windows, you must determine the deployment model that is suitable for your environment. The deployment types can be categorised in mainly 3 categories:

vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller

This is a standalone deployment type that has its own vCenter Single Sign-On domain with a single site.… Read More

In first post of this series Installing and Configuring Esxi we looked into Installation of Esxi 6.5 and as I stated in that post installation method has not changed at all. In this post we will look into overview of VCSA and will discuss about VCSA components.

Staring with vSphere 6.0, vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) offers same scalability as provided by windows based vCenter Server installation. Earlier there was a limitation with vCSA that it cannot support huge infrastructure where you have a lot of Esxi hosts and virtual machines running. Same holds true for v6.5 as well.

Earlier in v6.0 there was a limitation that if you are planning to use VUM in your infrastructure, you have to install it on a windows server.

Lot of customers had provided the feedback to VMware to include VUM with linux based VCSA and VMware listened to them and now in v6.5 VUM can be used alongside VCSA on same node.… Read More

We all know that vSphere 6.5 was announced by VMware 2 weeks back in VMworld Barcelona. With the release of 6.5 version of vSphere, VMware has done some fantastic work with HA and DRS enhancements. Several folks wrote blogs on the new features and enhancements that are included in this new release.

If you have not read about the new features/enhancements in vSphere 6.5, you can read it from here. Brian has done fantastic job by summing up all that you want to know about vSphere 6.5.

After reading a bit about vSphere 6.5, I decided to deploy and test it in my lab.

Note: The GA and beta version has not been released yet by VMware.

Let’s begin with part 1 of this series where we will see installation/configuration of Esxi host.

vSphere is a sophisticated product with multiple components to install and setup. Typically installing vSphere includes the following tasks:

We are starting with deploying Esxi host.… Read More