<disclaimer; I'm a SE for a reseller> VSphere is ESX4 (or ESXi 4)which runs as the basis for your hardware, VCenter is the management package that allows the single pane manipulation of your servers be it snapshot, failover, update, whatever. If you can live with just 3 physical box servers then you might consider looking at essentials plus (around $3k list) to get more advanced features get's a bit more expensive as you add features. Take note that the essentials package gives you 6 CPUs (this is how it's licensed) if you need more you're going to have to jump to Standard and up and there is no upgrade path from Essentials to Standard. Here's a good place to start http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-infrastructure-esx.htm HTH
From: Jeremy Anderson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 8:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: VMWare VSphere vs. Vcenter Server I am looking for a quick high level overview of the difference between Vcenter Server and VSphere. What can I do if I buy just VCenter, and what can I do if I have Vsphere. The environment that this would be going into would be a 3 standalone server environment, no SAN. I know that Vsphere requires Vcenter, but what benefit does it have over just running Vcenter? Currently in place is the 2 machines but they are running VMWare server and we want to migrate them to ESXi and have centralized management as well as snapshot capability. We will be adding a third server as well. TIA ________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT: The information transmitted, or contained or attached to or with this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain Protected Health Information (PHI), confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, transmission, dissemination, or other use of, and taking any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient without the express written consent of the sender are prohibited. This information may be protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and other Federal and Florida laws. Improper or unauthorized use or disclosure of this information could result in civil and/or criminal penalties. Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to. This email and any attached files are confidential and intended solely for the intended recipient(s). If you are not the named recipient you should not read, distribute, copy or alter this email. Any views or opinions expressed in this email are those of the author and do not represent those of the company. Warning: Although precautions have been taken to make sure no viruses are present in this email, the company cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage that arise from the use of this email or attachments. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
