Prerequisites for this walkthrough :
1) Reader must be aware of what VM ware workstation is and should be able to create VMs on it.
This tutorial explains you guys on how to build an ESXi v 4.0 server and access it on VMware workstation.
Though your machine is not a Visualization Tech (VT) enabled, VM ware workstation allows you to build an ESXi server on your machine which is pretty much enough to have test environment to most of the Engineers.
An ESXi server provides a virtualization layer that abstracts the processor, memory, storage and networking resources of the physical host into multiple virtual machines.
You can install ESXi on any hard drive on your server (need not be a super computer).
Virtualization is key for our test environment.
Instead of going for real hardware that costs us more, we are now landing up with ESXi which cuts down our cost drastically, this tutorial is for those who are curious to see what exactly ESXi looks like, as you can’t take chance on real server for first implementation.
DEEP DIVE Begins J
To build a real environment like above you need a VT-server to act as ESXi hosts with a public ip so that you can access it from anywhere or a private IP to access it from a local computer(which is on the same network s ESXi).
We are not gonna discuss more about configuring Databases and additional modules. As we cant go buy a VT enabled computer and client machines (To access ESXi hosts we need a Vsphere client machine), for domestic use or may be for test use we are building it on VMware.
I’m gonna begin with very basics of workstation and go deep into ESXi though a Virtual machine here, you can similarly install it on a VT enabled computer.
All the resources you need are
2. VMware workstation V 6.5 or higher only through which you can build ESXi
The pic above is an enterprise setup for a ESXi environment, what I’m gonna do here is instead of having two machines one to act as ESXi host and other as Vsphere client,I’ll build two Virtual machines on our VMware workstation.
VM’s specifications preferable for beginners are
Windows Xp for vSphere
For ESXi hardware specification and how to install Vm watch the video below.
Lets see how to have them in lan and access ESXi to bulid VMs on ESXi server via Vsphere .
Select New Team.
As we already have our VMs created choose the VMs that are
to be in the team selecting “Existing Virtual Machine"
.
Bingo, you completed the tedious part of this session and now we are yet to configure network.Click on the “Edit Team Settings”
Select the network adapter to be NAT so that you can acquire public IP from your ISP despite being in LAN of ESXi and Win XP. Which allows you to access internet
The Vm equipped with windowsXP is capable of acquiring IP address dynamically.So choose network setting for ESXi looking at Windows XP IPaddress to decrease complexity.
Since the ip address is 192.168.247.128 and I do not have DHCP server for my ESXi to dynamically acquire Ip address I chose Static IP as 192.168.247.127. Make sure that both machines fall in the same network.
Below Subnet mask and Default gateway of Esxi are identical to XP box above.
Save the setting and there you go…ESXi v 4.0 is now ready.
To access ESXi we have install vSphere on Xp box for that go to XP box and hit the address of ESXi in the Internet browser, that has to open up a window like this
Click “Proceed anyway”
Now download and Install vSphere client.
Login to ESXi in this way
Give the Ip address of ESXi and proper credentials to login into esxi and start creating VM J
Prerequisites for this walkthrough :
1) Reader must be aware of what VM ware workstation is and should be able to create VMs on it.
This tutorial explains you guys on how to build an ESXi v 4.0 server and access it on VMware workstation.
Though your machine is not a Visualization Tech (VT) enabled, VM ware workstation allows you to build an ESXi server on your machine which is pretty much enough to have test environment to most of the Engineers.
An ESXi server provides a virtualization layer that abstracts the processor, memory, storage and networking resources of the physical host into multiple virtual machines.
You can install ESXi on any hard drive on your server (need not be a super computer).
Virtualization is key for our test environment.
Instead of going for real hardware that costs us more, we are now landing up with ESXi which cuts down our cost drastically, this tutorial is for those who are curious to see what exactly ESXi looks like, as you can’t take chance on real server for first implementation.
DEEP DIVE Begins J
To build a real environment like above you need a VT-server to act as ESXi hosts with a public ip so that you can access it from anywhere or a private IP to access it from a local computer(which is on the same network s ESXi).
We are not gonna discuss more about configuring Databases and additional modules. As we cant go buy a VT enabled computer and client machines (To access ESXi hosts we need a Vsphere client machine), for domestic use or may be for test use we are building it on VMware.
I’m gonna begin with very basics of workstation and go deep into ESXi though a Virtual machine here, you can similarly install it on a VT enabled computer.
All the resources you need are
2. VMware workstation V 6.5 or higher only through which you can build ESXi
The pic above is an enterprise setup for a ESXi environment, what I’m gonna do here is instead of having two machines one to act as ESXi host and other as Vsphere client,I’ll build two Virtual machines on our VMware workstation.
VM’s specifications preferable for beginners are
Windows Xp for vSphere
For ESXi hardware specification and how to install Vm watch the video below.
Lets see how to have them in lan and access ESXi to bulid VMs on ESXi server via Vsphere .
Select New Team.
As we already have our VMs created choose the VMs that are
to be in the team selecting “Existing Virtual Machine"
.
Bingo, you completed the tedious part of this session and now we are yet to configure network.Click on the “Edit Team Settings”
Select the network adapter to be NAT so that you can acquire public IP from your ISP despite being in LAN of ESXi and Win XP. Which allows you to access internet
The Vm equipped with windowsXP is capable of acquiring IP address dynamically.So choose network setting for ESXi looking at Windows XP IPaddress to decrease complexity.
Since the ip address is 192.168.247.128 and I do not have DHCP server for my ESXi to dynamically acquire Ip address I chose Static IP as 192.168.247.127. Make sure that both machines fall in the same network.
Below Subnet mask and Default gateway of Esxi are identical to XP box above.
Save the setting and there you go…ESXi v 4.0 is now ready.
To access ESXi we have install vSphere on Xp box for that go to XP box and hit the address of ESXi in the Internet browser, that has to open up a window like this
Click “Proceed anyway”
Now download and Install vSphere client.
Login to ESXi in this way
Give the Ip address of ESXi and proper credentials to login into esxi and start creating VM J
