vSpherer 8 Administration (Skillset Enhancement Series) Episode#3

 Hi Everyone!

This post is in the continuation of my Skill Enhancement Series Episode#3 which now explains a high-level to detailed overview of ESXi Host Client (A Graphical User Interface - GUI).

A GUI is always eye catching and easy to use but somehow it always come to end when we talk about Administration level limitations for automation or the way an administrator tend to or pose do the work. This is a separate debate if we talk about the comparison in between CLI and GUI so CLI always wins because of its nature of infinity.

Having said so, there is an other limitation that we are actually focusing on right now. This limitation is known as 1:1 interaction with ESXi host for day-2 administration. What do i mean by that, For example, if you want to manage 10 ESXi host through GUI then you need to open up 10 browsers or 10 Tabs in a browser to open up GUI for each ESXi host.

Below picture will explain easily

So there comes the need to have a single pane of glass for administration and thats how we got vCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) in picture. 

1 vCSA connects with and manages upto 2500 ESXi host using same GUI which is known as vSphere Client. In my Next post, we shall go through vSphere client capabilities and vCSA various features and capabilites.

So now, lets focus on the point we discussed above which is vSphere-Host Client that by default listens on port 443 followed by either IP or FQDN of ESXi host. 

Unlike vSphere client you need to login by providing "root" user account and password you specified during the installation of ESXi host and you will be provided with basic infterface of web baese GUI as shown below:

This interface will be provided with all basic options to create, modify, run and delete a VM but you cannot do advanced operations of virtualization like

1. vSphere HA creation and modification
2. vMotion
3. Storage vMotion
4. Distributed Resource Scheduling
5. Backing up of your environment configuration
6. Content Library 
7. vSAN
8. Cluster level operations
9. Advanced Switching capabilities (NiOC / Outbound Traffic Shaping/ PvLAN/ Port level management)

and many more that you can only have it through "vCSA based vSphere Client"

There is a brief demo we prepared for you that is available through our youtube channel "Knowledge Speaks" you can click the link down there to watch the video directly. This is actually the part of our vSphere 8 Administration (Skillset Enhancement Series) based on various "Episodes" and its an ongoing activity the adds practical demonstration for beginners and refresher for advanced users as well. So, stay tuned ! 

Conclusion!

As vSphere host client is not as useful as vCSA provided "vSphere Client". Most of its capabilities you can see mentioned above in bullets points. In our upcoming lessons and series of blogs we shall provide you the conceptual and practical details about it. What are the reasons that "Host Client" is not as good as "vSphere Client"

1. Lack of options and capabilities 
2. Each host need to be managed by its separate GUI interface

Above 2 points are sufficient and enough to explain the difference in between the 2 interfaces provided by 

ESXi host (vSphere Host Client)

vCenter Server (vSphere Client)

Stay Tuned for next write-up 😊 

Happy Learning!