Are you already familiar with VMware technology, and just want to learn more about a variety of provided features and components? Or maybe you are new to VMware virtualization and want to learn about some of the key components needed for creating a successful virtual environment?
In this guide, you will find a variety of information about VMware vSphere, VMware vCenter, and VMware ESXi:
- what vSphere, ESXi, and vCenter are;
- how these technologies work;
- which purposes they serve;
- which business needs these three meet;
- how they are different from each other.
First things first: vSphere, vCenter, and ESXi are completely different technologies with completely different purposes, which makes them hard to compare. The more correct question than how they compare, then, would be how they complement each other.
But more on that later. Let’s now take a closer look at each one of those technologies.
What Is VMware ESXi? How Does VMware ESXi Work?
ESXi is a type 1 hypervisor, or in other words a bare-metal hypervisor. It’s a virtualization software allowing you to create multiple instances of virtual machines on one physical host. ESXi manages physical resources such as CPU, memory, storage, and network interfaces, efficiently sharing them among virtual machines.
The ESXi hypervisor is installed directly on the physical hardware (bare-metal), interacting closely with the underlying hardware to provide virtualization capabilities. Because of this, ESXi can operate faster, be more scalable, and overall perform better than other kinds of hypervisors. But the pros of ESXi do not end here.
ESXi is one of the smallest hypervisors in the world, with a size of 150 MB. Why should we care about that? Because it means that the installation process of ESXi is very quick—you can even boot up the ESXi server from the USB drive—it doesn’t require frequent patches after installation, and maintenance of the service is simplified. With the smaller size, and the fact that the ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor, comes greater security.
The ESXi hypervisor enables the creation and management of multiple virtual machines, each running its own operating system, on a single server. ESXi’s intuitive interface makes it easy for administrators to manage virtual environments. In addition to security and efficiency, ESXi helps reduce hardware costs by maximizing resource utilization and minimizing additional infrastructure expenses.
What Is VMware vCenter? How Does VMware vCenter Work?
VMware vCenter, or rather VMware vCenter Server, is a server application providing central management of your entire virtual infrastructure (virtual machines hosted on the ESXi instances as well as the ESXi instances themselves) comprised of multiple ESXi hosts and vSphere components from a single console.
This solution provides visibility, easy administration, and error prevention. vCenter Server also acts as a centralized platform, simplifying monitoring, automation, and control across large-scale virtual environments. The vSphere Web Client provides browser-based access to vCenter Server, enabling management from any device.
Technically speaking, vCenter Server isn’t necessary for running and maintaining VMs—you can do that quite well using only ESXi. But vCenter Server brings a lot to the table, especially when you want to optimize your workflow or need centralized management. With it, administrators can configure, provision, and manage the entire VM environment from one place.
Other key features included in vCenter Server are automation, task scheduling, and alerts, while high availability automatically restarts virtual machines on failed hosts to minimize downtime. vCenter Server streamlines routine operations and daily management tasks for administrators. This software will greatly help you optimize resource allocation and availability.
Additionally, vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) can be deployed on Photon OS or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, providing a secure and efficient platform for managing ESXi hosts.
What Is VMware vSphere? How Does VMware vSphere Work?
Just like Microsoft has its Office 365 platform, VMware has its vSphere. vSphere is a suite containing a huge number of applications and features for virtualization purposes. As a cloud computing virtualization platform, vSphere facilitates resource allocation and management in cloud environments.
The most prominent parts of vSphere are VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter—both of which we’ve talked about already—and VMware vSphere Client, among many others. vSphere offers a wide range of functionalities, including VM management, resource allocation, and high availability.
VMware vSphere’s mission is to help existing data centers switch to cloud computing. vSphere aggregates physical hardware into pools of virtual resources, optimizing hardware usage and supporting multiple virtual machines. In the process, it increases the utilization of the used hardware from give or take 10% to as high as 80%, without compromising the performance.
vSphere environments allow you to create virtual machines, manage workloads, and scale your IT infrastructure efficiently. vSphere is part of VMware’s broader virtualization solutions, which include comprehensive software packages for modern IT infrastructure.
With the vSphere suite also comes a vSphere client, which allows administrators to connect to existing ESXi servers in order to manage and maintain virtual machines hosted on the hypervisor. The vSphere hypervisor (ESXi) is available in both free and paid versions, with the free version perfectly suitable for basic use cases.
VMware vCenter vs. vSphere vs. ESXi: How Do They Work Together?
How do vSphere, vCenter, and ESXi work together to create a unified virtualization environment? Let’s now answer the question of how these technologies complement each other, and how they work together to create a virtualization infrastructure that companies need.
To recap, vSphere is a product suite, ESXi is a hypervisor installed on the physical machine, and vCenter Server is a management platform for VMs. So, if we were to put together ESXi vs. vSphere vs. vCenter, ESXi is the core hypervisor that runs directly on servers, while vSphere is the suite that includes ESXi and vCenter, and vCenter provides centralized management for virtual resources.
When you’re working on a small virtualization environment, the vSphere client will be sufficient to maintain and manage virtual machines hosted on a few ESXi servers. Both vSphere and ESXi can run multiple VMs on a single physical server, enabling efficient resource utilization and scalability.
But when your environment is growing in size, and you need advanced features to manage your multiple ESXi servers, the more advanced vCenter will allow you to control access permissions, monitor performance, and, for example, clone an existing virtual machine.
vCenter enables centralized management of multiple physical servers, streamlining administration across the virtual infrastructure. vCenter is still controlled via the vSphere client, to simplify the processes for administrators.
Final Thoughts on VMware ESXi vs. vSphere vs. vCenter
To leave you on the most important note, most physical machines are underused, working on 15% of their capacity at best, leaving around 85% unused. VMware vSphere provides the solution to this problem, allowing you to utilize most of the hardware.
Furthermore, multiple instances of virtual machines can be installed on a single physical machine, running different OS and apps. Your entire infrastructure can be virtualized, even if it consists of multiple connected physical machines and storage.
With that come increased amounts of data generated—data you might want to secure—and even though VMs are a more secure way of keeping your data, they’re not 100% bulletproof. This is why you need to have a backup of your virtual machines in place, and where the Xopero ONE VMware backup comes to the rescue!