In the previous post, we discussed about ESXi. We also discussed about the different methods using which we can access the ESXi to manage the workload running on it.
The real challenge is how will you manage an environment with hundreds of ESXi hosts. Logging into each and every ESXi host to manage it's configuration and VM's running on it is highly impossible and time consuming. To overcome this you would need some management tool which you can use to manage all of your ESXi servers and their virtualized workloads through a single pane of glass.
One of vSphere’s important components which can help you to achieve this is vCenter Server. It acts as a centralized administration point for ESXi hosts and virtual machines running on it. It also allows the performance evaluation of VM's running on ESXi and use of some advanced vSphere features like vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere High Availability (HA), vSphere vMotion, and Storage vMotion.
Besides routine administration, vCenter server also ensures security by defining and monitoring access control. It also help to integrate with different virtualization cloud products.
vCenter server can be installed on Windows, as well as a virtual appliance (pre-configured VM) with a Photon OS (Linux) which is very fast booting Linux distribution. Older versions of vCenter appliances were based on SUSE Linux. In 2015, VMware announced Project Photon which was intended to improve scalability and integration between cloud apps and existing enterprise infrastructure. All the newer versions of VCSA are based on Photon.
vCenter Server Architecture -
The vCenter Server consist of the following components:
VMware vSphere Web Client and VMware vSphere Client - Both these tools are used to manage the vCenter server.
vCenter Server database - The most critical component is the vCenter Server database. The database stores the inventory items, security roles, resource pools, performance data, and other critical information for vCenter Server.
VMware vCenter Single Sign-On - It provides a security domain defined in your vSphere environment. Authentication is performed by the vCenter Single Sign-On server. The vCenter Single Sign-On server can be configured to authenticate against multiple user repositories, also called identity sources, such as an Active Directory domain.
ESXi hosts - vCenter Server enables you to manage ESXi hosts and the virtual machines that run on them.
Along with these main components, vCenter Server also includes other services and features. There are about 11 services in Platform Service Controllers(eg.vCenter Single Sign-On, License service, Lookup Service, VMware Certificate Authority, etc) and 26 services (eg.vSphere Web Client, vSphere Auto Deploy, and vSphere ESXi Dump Collector) in vCenter Server 6.5.
Additional services are packaged separately from the base product and requires separate installation, for example, VMware vSphere Update Manager and VMware vRealize Orchestrator. No additional license is necessary. Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server uses the VMware vSphere Update Manager Extension service. An external VMware Update Manager instance on Windows is no longer required.
Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server Appliance supports high availability. It also supports file-based backup and restore.
By offering a comprehensive suite of features and functionalities, vCenter empowers organizations to streamline operations, enhance resource utilization, and ensure the reliability and availability of their virtual environments. Whether managing a few VMs or overseeing large-scale data centers, vCenter remains an indispensable tool for IT administrators seeking to harness the full potential of virtualization technology.
I hope people who are new to virtualization would find this article helpful.
Thank you for reading!
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