Install and Configure VMware ESXi on VMware Workstation

First of all, you will need:

1. 64-bit Dual Core CPU

2. 4 GB of RAM

3. VMware Workstation

4. VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 

5. VMware Client

1. Download and Install VMware Workstation

First you will need to do is to download and install VMware Workstation. 

It's easy just follow the instruction.

2. Download and Install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 

Run your installed VMware Workstation and create a New Virtual Machine. Leave Typical configuration option and click Next. 

Click Browse and select your .iso file and click Next. 

Name your Virtual Machine and select Location if you want and click Next.

Select Maximum disk size and choose disk state, I recommend to use Split option and click Next and Finish. 

Once you click Finish, it will start installation process. Click Enter or just wait.

It will take a time to install. And when it's done you will see Welcome screen. Click Enter to continue.

Click F11 to agree License Agreement and continue. 

Now you need to select a Disk to Install and click Enter to continue. 

Select a keyboard language and click Enter to continue. 

Enter root password and click Enter to continue. 

Click F11 to Confirm Installation and click Enter to reboot. 

So now after rebooting you will see this screen. 

3. Install VMware Client

Now after installation is done you will need VMware Client to configure ESXi. To download it enter the IP address that is shown on your yellow screen. 

It's easy just follow the instruction.

4. Configure ESXi

After everything is installed, you need to connect to ESXi and configure it. 

Open your VMware vSphere Client and enter the IP address that is shown on your yellow screen. In my case, it's 192.168.52.132. Enter "root" in User name and Password that you have entered during the ESXi installation and click Login. 

You will get Security Warning message of certificate, so just click Install this certificate and than click Ignore. 

When you're connected to ESXi, you will need to create your virtual machine in ESXi. 

Right click on your IP address and choose New Virtual Machine. 

New Virtual Machine Configuration opens, follow the instruction and you will have your virtual machine on ESXi. 

Difference between vSphere, ESXi and vCenter

VMware Inc. is a software company that develops many suites of software products specially for providing various virtualization solutions. There are many cloud products, datacenter products, desktop products and so on.

vSphere is a software suite that comes under data center product. vSphere is like Microsoft Office suite which has many softwares like MS Office, MS Excel, MS Access and so on. Like Microsoft Office, vSphere is also a software suite that has many software components like vCenter, ESXi, vSphere client and so on. So, the combination of all these software components is vSphere. vSphere is not a particular software that you can install and use, “it is just a package name which has other sub components”.

ESXi, vSphere client and vCenter are components of vSphere. ESXi server is the most important part of vSphere. ESXi is the virtualization server. It is type 1 hypervisor. All the virtual machines or Guest OS are installed on ESXi server. To install, manage and access those virtual servers which sit above of ESXi server, you will need other part of vSphere suit called vSphere client or vCenter. Now, vSphere client allows administrators to connect to ESXi servers and access or manage virtual machines. vSphere client is installed on the client machine (e.g. Administrator’s laptop). The vSphere client is used from client machine to connect to ESXi server and do management tasks. So now what is vCenter? Why we need it? Try cloning existing virtual machine using just a vSphere client without vCenter server.

vCenter server is similar to vSphere client but it’s a server with more power. vCenter server is installed on Windows Server or Linux Server. VMware vCenter server is a centralized management application that lets you manage virtual machines and ESXi hosts centrally. vSphere client is used to access vCenter Server and ultimately manage ESXi servers. vCenter server is compulsory for enterprises to have enterprise features like vMotion, VMware High Availability, VMware Update Manager and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). For example, you can easily clone existing virtual machine in vCenter server. So vCenter is another important part of vSphere package. You have to buy vCenter license separately.

The diagram above shows vSphere suite in a more descriptive way. vSphere is a product suite, ESXi is a hypervisor installed on a physical machine. vSphere Client is installed on laptop or desktop PC and is used to access ESXi Server to install and manage virtual machines on ESXi server. vCenter server is installed as virtual machine on top of ESXi server. vCenter server can also be installed on different standalone physical server, but why not virtualize it too right? vCenter server is a vSphere component which is mostly used in large environment where there are many ESXi servers and dozens of virtual machines. The vCenter server is also accessed by vSphere client for management purpose. So, vSphere client is used to access ESXi server directly in small environment. In larger environment, vSphere client is used again to access vCenter server which ultimately manages ESXi server.

You can install vSphere in your PC to get more knowledge of this amazing technology. For more information about VMware you can visit VMware’s Official website.