Complete Understanding on VMware vCenter Discovery - Article
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Monday
Service Now - vCenter Discovery
Have you encountered confusion with VMware technical terminology when receiving a requirement to enable vCenter discovery?
LET ME BREAK IT FOR YOU
Having knowledge of the infrastructure side helps us design and implement solutions in a better way.
1. vCenter - In a VMware environment, vCenter serves as the backbone, providing a centralized management interface where all VMware resources and operations are managed.
2. Esxi Host - ESXi hosts are the physical servers where virtual machines run, and they are centrally managed through vCenter.
3. Virtual Machine's - Virtual machines run on ESXi hosts and consume shared compute, memory, and storage resources, all managed centrally through vCenter.
Once you have understood the basics lets get into few more details of where will be the vCenter installed? Is it Windows or Linux?
vCenter on Windows is no longer supported by VMware, we only have vCenter Service Appliance (VCSA)
vCenter Service Appliance = vCenter (Linux Based)
Have you wondered why we need port 443, 9443 and port 5480 to be open and what is the use of each port and what it is from the VMware perspective?
1. Port 443 - https://<vCenter_Server_FQDN_or_IP>/, It redirects to main management interface of the vCenter which is called vSphere client.
2. Port 5480 - It redirects to vCenter appliance settings (VAMI - vCenter Appliance Management Interface) page where we get the appliance details.
3. Port 443 - https://<Esxi_Server_FQDN_or_IP>/, It redirects to host client web interface for the Esxi host.
4. Port 9443 - Used for older vCenter identification.
Are you wondering why do we need ports when the vCenter discovery is done via API?
vCenter communication is done via API/SDK they work over network protocols, vCenter APIs are exposed as web services which typically uses HTTPS in turn HTTPS need port 443 to be open.
This article should help us ask more targeted questions to the customer, understand the technical terms used by VMware experts, and grasp the basics of VMware architecture.
