VMware VS4-ENT-PL-A - vSphere Enterprise Plus User manual

vSphere Installation and Setup
vSphere 5.5
This document supports the version of each product listed and
supports all subsequent versions until the document is
replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions
of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
EN-001266-02

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Contents
About vSphere Installation and Setup 7
Updated Information 9
1Introduction to vSphere Installation and Setup 11
Overview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process 11
2System Requirements 13
ESXi Hardware Requirements 13
Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service,
and vCenter Single Sign-On 17
vCenter Server Software Requirements 22
vSphere Web Client Software Requirements 22
Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging 23
Required Ports for vCenter Server 23
Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance 25
Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80 26
DNS Requirements for vSphere 26
Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions 27
3Before You Install vCenter Server 29
Preparing vCenter Server Databases 30
Prerequisites for Installing vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service, and vCenter Server 49
How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects vCenter Server Installation 51
vCenter Single Sign-On Deployment Modes 52
vCenter Single Sign-On and High Availability 54
vCenter Single Sign-On Components 56
Setting the vCenter Server Administrator User 56
Authenticating to the vCenter Server Environment 57
How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects Log In Behavior 57
Identity Sources for vCenter Server with vCenter Single Sign-On 58
Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network 59
Download the vCenter Server Installer 61
Using a User Account for Running vCenter Server 61
Installing vCenter Server on IPv6 Machines 61
JDBC URL Formats for the vCenter Server Database 62
Running the vCenter Server Installer from a Network Drive 63
Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service,
vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client 63
Download the vCenter Server Installer 68
Microsoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server
Installation or Upgrade to Fail 69
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4Installing vCenter Server 71
vCenter Server Installation and Sign-In Process 71
vCenter Server Components and Support Tools 74
Download the vCenter Server Installer 75
Install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter
Server by Using Simple Install 75
Use Custom Install to Install vCenter Server and Required Components 78
Add a vCenter Single Sign-On Identity Source 87
Install or Upgrade vCenter Server Java Components Separately 92
Install or Upgrade vCenter Server tc Server Separately 93
vCenter Single Sign-On Installation Fails 93
Download and Deploy the VMware vCenter Server Appliance 94
5After You Install vCenter Server 101
Install vCenter Server Components 102
Creating vCenter Server Linked Mode Groups 111
Configuring VMware vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server 116
VMware vCenter Management Webservices Service Fails to Start 118
Back Up the Inventory Service Database on Windows 118
Restore an Inventory Service Database Backup on Windows 118
Back Up the Inventory Service Database on Linux 119
Restore an Inventory Service Database Backup on Linux 119
Reset the vCenter Inventory Service Database 120
Enable IPv6 Support for vCenter Inventory Service 121
6Before You Install ESXi 123
Options for Installing ESXi 123
Media Options for Booting the ESXi Installer 125
Using Remote Management Applications 136
Required Information for ESXi Installation 136
7Installing ESXi 139
Installing ESXi Interactively 139
Installing, Upgrading, or Migrating Hosts Using a Script 142
Installing ESXi Using vSphere Auto Deploy 157
Using vSphere ESXi Image Builder CLI 225
8Setting Up ESXi 247
ESXi Autoconfiguration 248
About the Direct Console ESXi Interface 248
Set the Password for the Administrator Account 251
Configuring the BIOS Boot Settings 251
Host Fails to Boot After You Install ESXi in UEFI Mode 252
Network Access to Your ESXi Host 253
Configure the Network Settings on a Host That Is Not Attached to the Network 253
Managing ESXi Remotely 254
Configuring Network Settings 254
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Storage Behavior 258
View System Logs 261
Configure Syslog on ESXi Hosts 262
Enable Lockdown Mode Using the Direct Console 263
Enable Lockdown Mode Using the vSphere Web Client 263
Enable ESXi Shell and SSH Access with the Direct Console User Interface 264
Set the Host Image Profile Acceptance Level 264
Reset the System Configuration 265
Remove All Custom Packages on ESXi 266
Disable Support for Non-ASCII Characters in Virtual Machine File and Directory Names 266
Disable ESXi 266
9After You Install and Set Up ESXi 267
Managing the ESXi Host with the vSphere Web Client 267
Licensing ESXi Hosts 267
Index 269
Contents
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About vSphere Installation and Setup
vSphere Installation and Setup describes how to install new configurations of VMware® vCenter Server and
ESXi.
Intended Audience
vSphere Installation and Setup is intended for anyone who needs to install and set up vCenter Server and
ESXi.
This information is written for experienced Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with
virtual machine technology and datacenter operations.
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Updated Information
This vSphere Installation and Setup publication is updated with each release of the product or when necessary.
This table provides the update history of vSphere Installation and Setup.
Revision Description
EN-001266-02 Corrected location of dbschema directory in the following topics:
n“Configure an Oracle Database User,” on page 43.
n“Use a Script to Create a Local or Remote Oracle Database,” on page 44.
n“(Optional) Use a Script to Create the Oracle Database Schema,” on page 44.
.
EN-001266-01 Updated Table 2-8.
EN-001266-00 Initial release.
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Introduction to vSphere Installation
and Setup 1
vSphere 5.x provides various options for installation and setup. To ensure a successful vSphere deployment,
understand the installation and setup options, and the sequence of tasks required.
You have several options for installing and setting up ESXi, for managing vSphere with vCenter Server and
the vSphere Web Client, and for the database setup that you use with vCenter Server.
Overview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process
vSphere is a sophisticated product with multiple components to install and set up. To ensure a successful
vSphere deployment, understand the sequence of tasks required.
NOTE This overview does not apply to the vCenter Server Appliance. To deploy the vCenter Server
Appliance, see “Download and Deploy the VMware vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 94.
The following illustration shows the order of installation for vCenter Server components.
vCenter Server
vCenter Inventory Service vCenter ServervSphere Web ClientvCenter Single Sign-On
Installing vSphere includes the following tasks:
1 Read the vSphere release notes.
2 Verify that your system meets vSphere hardware and software requirements. See Chapter 2, “System
Requirements,” on page 13.
3 Install vCenter Server.
a (Optional) Set up the vCenter Server database. See “Preparing vCenter Server Databases,” on
page 30.
NOTE For small installations (up to 5 hosts and 50 virtual machines), you can use the bundled
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express database, which you can choose to have the vCenter Server
installer create during the vCenter Server installation.
b Review the topics in Chapter 3, “Before You Install vCenter Server,” on page 29.
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c Use the topic “Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory
Service, vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client,” on page 63 to create a worksheet with the
information you need for installation.
d Install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client, Inventory Service, vCenter Server, and
other vCenter Server support tools as appropriate. Connect to vCenter Server from the
vSphere Web Client. See Chapter 4, “Installing vCenter Server,” on page 71 and Chapter 5, “After
You Install vCenter Server,” on page 101.
e (Optional) Create a Linked Mode Group or join vCenter Server to a Linked Mode Group. See
“Creating vCenter Server Linked Mode Groups,” on page 111.
4 Install ESXi.
a Review the topics in Chapter 6, “Before You Install ESXi,” on page 123.
b Determine the ESXi installation option to use. See “Options for Installing ESXi,” on page 123.
c Determine where you will locate and boot the ESXi installer. See “Media Options for Booting the
ESXi Installer,” on page 125. If you are PXE-booting the installer, verify that your network PXE
infrastructure is properly set up. See “PXE Booting the ESXi Installer,” on page 129.
d Use the topic “Required Information for ESXi Installation,” on page 136 to create a worksheet with
the information you will need when you install ESXi.
e Install ESXi, using the installation option you chose:
n“Installing ESXi Interactively,” on page 139
n“Installing, Upgrading, or Migrating Hosts Using a Script,” on page 142
n“Installing ESXi Using vSphere Auto Deploy,” on page 157
5 Configure ESXi boot and network settings, the direct console, and other settings. See Chapter 8, “Setting
Up ESXi,” on page 247 and Chapter 9, “After You Install and Set Up ESXi,” on page 267.
6 Consider setting up a syslog server for remote logging, to ensure sufficient disk storage for log files.
Setting up logging on a remote host is especially important for hosts with limited local storage.
Optionally, you can install the vSphere Syslog Collector to collect logs from all hosts. See “Providing
Sufficient Space for System Logging,” on page 23, “Configure Syslog on ESXi Hosts,” on page 262,
and “Install or Upgrade vSphere Syslog Collector,” on page 108.
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System Requirements 2
Systems running vCenter Server and ESXi instances must meet specific hardware and operating system
requirements.
If you are using Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts, see also “Preparing for vSphere Auto Deploy,” on
page 167.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n“ESXi Hardware Requirements,” on page 13
n“Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client, vCenter Inventory Service, and
vCenter Single Sign-On,” on page 17
n“vCenter Server Software Requirements,” on page 22
n“vSphere Web Client Software Requirements,” on page 22
n“Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging,” on page 23
n“Required Ports for vCenter Server,” on page 23
n“Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 25
n“Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80,” on page 26
n“DNS Requirements for vSphere,” on page 26
n“Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions,” on page 27
ESXi Hardware Requirements
Make sure the host meets the minimum hardware configurations supported by ESXi 5.5.
Hardware and System Resources
To install and use ESXi 5.5, your hardware and system resources must meet the following requirements:
nSupported server platform. For a list of supported platforms, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
nESXi 5.5 will install and run only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.
nESXi 5.5 requires a host machine with at least two cores.
nESXi 5.5 supports only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions.
nESXi 5.5 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.
nESXi supports a broad range of x64 multicore processors. For a complete list of supported processors,
see the VMware compatibility guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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nESXi requires a minimum of 4GB of physical RAM. Provide at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage
of ESXi features and run virtual machines in typical production environments.
nTo support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must
be enabled on x64 CPUs.
nOne or more Gigabit or 10Gb Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported network adapter models, see
the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
nAny combination of one or more of the following controllers:
nBasic SCSI controllers. Adaptec Ultra-160 or Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT, or most
NCR/Symbios SCSI.
nRAID controllers. Dell PERC (Adaptec RAID or LSI MegaRAID), HP Smart Array RAID, or IBM
(Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.
nSCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.
nFor Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board
SATA controllers. SATA disks will be considered remote, not local. These disks will not be used as a
scratch partition by default because they are seen as remote.
NOTE You cannot connect a SATA CD-ROM device to a virtual machine on an ESXi 5.5 host. To use the
SATA CD-ROM device, you must use IDE emulation mode.
Storage Systems
For a list of supported storage systems, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility. ESXi 5.5 supports installing on and booting from the
following storage systems:
nSATA disk drives. SATA disk drives connected behind supported SAS controllers or supported on-
board SATA controllers.
Supported SAS controllers include:
nLSI1068E (LSISAS3442E)
nLSI1068 (SAS 5)
nIBM ServeRAID 8K SAS controller
nSmart Array P400/256 controller
nDell PERC 5.0.1 controller
Supported on-board SATA include:
nIntel ICH9
nNVIDIA MCP55
nServerWorks HT1000
NOTE ESXi does not support using local, internal SATA drives on the host server to create VMFS
datastores that are shared across multiple ESXi hosts.
nSerial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives. Supported for installing ESXi and for storing virtual machines
on VMFS partitions.
nDedicated SAN disk on Fibre Channel or iSCSI
nUSB devices. Supported for installing ESXi.
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nSoftware Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). See “Installing and Booting ESXi with Software FCoE,”
on page 136.
ESXi Booting Requirements
vSphere 5.5 supports booting ESXi hosts from the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). With UEFI
you can boot systems from hard drives, CD-ROM drives, or USB media. Network booting or provisioning
with VMware Auto Deploy requires the legacy BIOS firmware and is not available with UEFI.
ESXi can boot from a disk larger than 2TB provided that the system firmware and the firmware on any add-
in card that you are using support it. See the vendor documentation.
NOTE Changing the boot type from legacy BIOS to UEFI after you install ESXi 5.5 might cause the host to
fail to boot. In this case, the host displays an error message similar to: Not a VMware boot bank. Changing
the host boot type between legacy BIOS and UEFI is not supported after you install ESXi 5.5.
Storage Requirements for ESXi 5.5 Installation
Installing ESXi 5.5 requires a boot device that is a minimum of 1GB in size. When booting from a local disk
or SAN/iSCSI LUN, a 5.2GB disk is required to allow for the creation of the VMFS volume and a 4GB scratch
partition on the boot device. If a smaller disk or LUN is used, the installer will attempt to allocate a scratch
region on a separate local disk. If a local disk cannot be found the scratch partition, /scratch, will be located
on the ESXi host ramdisk, linked to /tmp/scratch. You can reconfigure /scratch to use a separate disk or
LUN. For best performance and memory optimization, VMware recommends that you do not
leave /scratch on the ESXi host ramdisk.
To reconfigure /scratch, see “Set the Scratch Partition from the vSphere Web Client,” on page 260.
Due to the I/O sensitivity of USB and SD devices the installer does not create a scratch partition on these
devices. As such, there is no tangible benefit to using large USB/SD devices as ESXi uses only the first 1GB.
When installing on USB or SD devices, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local
disk or datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found, /scratch is placed on the ramdisk. You should
reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.
In Auto Deploy installations, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local disk or
datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found /scratch is placed on ramdisk. You should
reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.
For environments that boot from a SAN or use Auto Deploy, it is not necessary to allocate a separate LUN
for each ESXi host. You can co-locate the scratch regions for many ESXi hosts onto a single LUN. The
number of hosts assigned to any single LUN should be weighed against the LUN size and the I/O behavior
of the virtual machines.
Recommendation for Enhanced ESXi Performance
To enhance performance, install ESXi on a robust system with more RAM than the minimum required and
with multiple physical disks.
For ESXi system requirements, see “ESXi Hardware Requirements,” on page 13. See also the technical
papers on vSphere 5 performance at http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/cat/91,203,96.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
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Table 2‑1. Recommendations for Enhanced Performance
System Element Recommendation
RAM ESXi hosts require more RAM than typical servers. Provide
at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage of ESXi features
and run virtual machines in typical production
environments. An ESXi host must have sufficient RAM to
run concurrent virtual machines. The following examples
are provided to help you calculate the RAM required by
the virtual machines running on the ESXi host.
Operating four virtual machines with
Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Windows XP requires at least
3GB of RAM for baseline performance. This figure includes
approximately 1024MB for the virtual machines, 256MB
minimum for each operating system as recommended by
vendors.
Running these four virtual machines with 512MB RAM
requires that the ESXi host have approximately 4GB RAM,
which includes 2048MB for the virtual machines.
These calculations do not take into account possible
memory savings from using variable overhead memory for
each virtual machine. See vSphere Resource Management .
Dedicated Fast Ethernet adapters for virtual machines Place the management network and virtual machine
networks on different physical network cards. Dedicated
Gigabit Ethernet cards for virtual machines, such as Intel
PRO 1000 adapters, improve throughput to virtual
machines with high network traffic.
Disk location Place all data that your virtual machines use on physical
disks allocated specifically to virtual machines.
Performance is better when you do not place your virtual
machines on the disk containing the ESXi boot image. Use
physical disks that are large enough to hold disk images
that all the virtual machines use.
VMFS5 partitioning The ESXi installer creates the initial VMFS volumes on the
first blank local disk found. To add disks or modify the
original configuration, use the vSphere Web Client. This
practice ensures that the starting sectors of partitions are
64K-aligned, which improves storage performance.
NOTE For SAS-only environments, the installer might not
format the disks. For some SAS disks, it is not possible to
identify whether the disks are local or remote. After the
installation, you can use the vSphere Web Client to set up
VMFS.
Processors Faster processors improve ESXi performance. For certain
workloads, larger caches improve ESXi performance.
Hardware compatibility Use devices in your server that are supported by ESXi 5.5
drivers. See the Hardware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client ,
vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Single Sign-On
vCenter Server host machines must meet hardware requirements.
vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service,
and vCenter Server Hardware Requirements
You can install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter
Server on the same host machine (as with vCenter Simple Install) or on different machines. See Table 2-2.
The follosing tables list the hardware requirements for vCenter Single Sign-On and Inventory Service,
running on separate host machines.
nTable 2-3
nTable 2-4
If you use Custom Install to install vCenter Single Sign-On, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server
on the same host machine, the vCenter Single Sign-On, and Inventory Service memory and disk storage
requirements are in addition to the requirements for vCenter Server. See Table 2-5.
Table 2‑2. Minimum Hardware Requirements for Simple Install Deployment of vCenter Single Sign-On, the
vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server
Host Hardware for Simple Install Deployment Minimum Requirement
Processor Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory 12GB.
Memory requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server.
vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware
VirtualCenter Management Webservices (tc Server),
Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.
When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of
your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these
services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM
heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting
after installation if the number of hosts in your
environment changes. See the recommendations in
Table 2-7.
Disk storage 100GB recommended.
40-60GB of free disk space are required after installation,
depending on the size of your inventory. You should
provide more space to allow for future growth of your
inventory.
Disk storage requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server,
depending on the size of the database.
In vCenter Server 5.x, the default size for vCenter Server
logs is 450MB larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure
the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this
increase.
Network speed 1Gbps
Chapter 2 System Requirements
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Table 2‑3. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Single Sign-On, Running on a Separate Host
Machine from vCenter Server
vCenter Single Sign-On Hardware Requirement
Processor Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory 3GB. If vCenter Single Sign-On runs on the same host
machine as vCenter Server, see Table 2-2 or Table 2-5.
Disk storage 2GB.
Network speed 1Gbps
Table 2‑4. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Inventory Service, Running on a Separate Host
Machine from vCenter Server
vCenter Inventory Service Hardware Requirement
Processor Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory 3GB. If vCenter Inventory Service runs on the same host
machine as vCenter Server, see Table 2-2 or Table 2-5.
Disk storage If vCenter Inventory Service runs on the same host
machine as vCenter Server, these requirements are in
addition to the disk space required for vCenter Server and
any other applications running on the vCenter Server host
machine. See Table 2-5.
Disk storage requirements for Inventory Service depend on
inventory size and the amount of activity in the virtual
machines in the inventory. At typical activity rates,
Inventory Service uses 6GB - 12GB of disk space for 15,000
virtual machines distributed among 1,000 hosts.
A high rate of activity (more than 20 percent of your virtual
machines changing per hour) results in write-ahead logs
(WAL) being written to disk to handle updates, instead of
in-line writes into existing disk usage. This high rate of
activity is often associated with Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI) use cases.
In the following guidelines for required disk space, a small
inventory is 1-100 hosts or 1-1000 virtual machines, and a
large inventory is more than 400 hosts or 4000 virtual
machines.
nSmall inventory, low activity rate: 5GB.
nSmall inventory, high activity rate: 15GB.
nLarge inventory, low activity rate: 15GB.
nLarge inventory, high activity rate: 40GB-60GB.
Network speed 1Gbps
Table 2‑5. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server
vCenter Server Hardware Requirement
CPU Two 64-bit CPUs or one 64-bit dual-core processor.
Processor 2.0GHz or faster Intel 64 or AMD 64 processor. The
Itanium (IA64) processor is not supported. Processor
requirements might be higher if the database runs on the
same machine.
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Table 2‑5. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server (Continued)
vCenter Server Hardware Requirement
Memory The amount of memory needed depends on your vCenter
Server configuration.
nIf vCenter Server is installed on a different host
machine than vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service, 4GB of RAM are required.
nIf vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service are installed on the same host
machine (as with vCenter Simple Install), 10GB of
RAM are required.
Memory requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server.
vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware
VirtualCenter Management Webservices (tc Server),
Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.
When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of
your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these
services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM
heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting
after installation if the number of hosts in your
environment changes. See the recommendations in
Table 2-7.
Disk storage The amount of disk storage needed for the vCenter Server
installation depends on your vCenter Server configuration.
nIf vCenter Server is installed on a different host
machine than vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service, 4GB are required.
nIf vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service are installed on the same host
machine (as with vCenter Simple Install), at least
40-60GB of free disk space are required after
installation, depending on the size of your inventory.
You should provide more space to allow for future
growth of your inventory. For guidelines about the
disk space required for vCenter Single Sign-On and
Inventory Service, see Table 2-3 and Table 2-4
Disk storage requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server,
depending on the size of those databases.
In vCenter Server 5.x, the default size for vCenter Server
logs is 450MB larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure
the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this
increase.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express disk Up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation
archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are deleted
after the installation is complete.
Network speed 1Gbps
NOTE Installing vCenter Server on a network drive or USB flash drive is not supported.
For the hardware requirements of your database, see your database documentation. The database
requirements are in addition to the vCenter Server requirements if the database and vCenter Server run on
the same machine.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
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vSphere Web Client Hardware Requirements
The vSphere Web Client has two components: A Java server and an Adobe Flex client application running in
a browser.
Table 2‑6. Hardware Requirements for the vSphere Web Client Server Component
vSphere Web Client Server Hardware Requirement
Memory At least 2GB: 1GB for the Java heap, and 1GB for
nThe resident code
nThe stack for Java threads
nGlobal/bss segments for the Java process
CPU 2.00 GHz processor with 4 cores
Disk Storage At least 2GB free disk space
Networking Gigabit connection recommended
JVM heap settings for vCenter Server
The JVM heap settings for vCenter Server depend on your inventory size. See “Configuring VMware
vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server,” on page 116.
Table 2‑7. JVM Heap Settings for vCenter Server
vCenter Server
Inventory
VMware VirtualCenter
Management Webservices (tc
Server) Inventory Service
Profile-Driven
Storage Service
Small inventory (1-100
hosts or 1-1000 virtual
machines)
1GB 3GB 1GB
Medium inventory
(100-400 hosts or
1000-4000 virtual
machines)
2GB 6GB 2GB
Large inventory (More
than 400 hosts or 4000
virtual machines)
3GB 12GB 4GB
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