ESXi and vCenter Server Design Considerations

Design decisions for virtualization of the SDDC must address the deployment and support specifics of ESXi and vCenter Server.

Consider the following design decisions when you plan the deployment of ESXi hosts.

ESXi

• Use a tool such as VMware Capacity Planner to analyze the performance and use of existing servers.
• Use supported server platforms that are listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide.
• Verify that your hardware meets the minimum required system requirements for running ESXi.
• To eliminate variability and achieve a manageable and supportable infrastructure, standardize the physical configuration of the ESXi hosts.
• You can deploy ESXi hosts either manually, or by using an automated installation method such as vSphere Auto Deploy. One valid approach is to deploy the management cluster manually, and implement vSphere Auto Deploy as your environment grows.

vCenter Server

• You can deploy vCenter Server as a Linux-based virtual appliance or on a 64-bit Windows physical or virtual machine.
  Note: vCenter Server on Windows scales up to support up to 10,000 powered-on virtual machines. The vCenter Server Appliance is an alternative choice that is preconfigured and enables faster deployment and reduced operating system licensing costs. When using an external Oracle database, the vCenter Server Appliance can support a maximum of 10,000 virtual machines.
• Provide sufficient virtual system resources for vCenter Server.
• Deploy the vSphere Web Client and the vSphere Client for user interfaces to the environment. Deploy the vSphere Command Line Interface (vCLI) or vSphere PowerCLI for command-line and scripting management. vCLI and vSphere SDK for Perl are included in the vSphere Management Assistant.