Take a look at my article on the below link If you are looking for comparison between various vSphere versions. I hope this table helps you to understand what is VMware vSphere and evolution of VMware vSphere. Take a look at my article to understand Difference between VMware ESX and VMware ESXiīelow are brief product release history of VMware vSphere products shows the evolution of VMware workstation to VMware vSphere 6.5.

VMware GSX has be retired but ESX line is now renamed to ESXi with the lot of architectural differences and improvements across each release of ESXi host. Where ESX ran directly on the server hardware (bare metal hypervisor) and GSX required a host OS. Followed by VMware Workstation, They released ESX (Elastic Sky X) and GSX (Ground Storm X) hypervisors. VMware first released the VMware Workstation in 1998 which is the root product of VMware. VMware renamed its flagship product name “VMware Infrastructure” to “VMware vSphere” with the release of VMware vSphere 4. Prior to VMware vSphere, entire VMware product suite is called “VMware Infrastructure”. Take a look at my article comparison deep dive VMware vs Hyper-v History of VMware vSphere ? VMware vSphere is being the master in virtualization industry as compared to other hypervisors such as Microsoft Hyper-v and Citrix Xen Server. I hope this simple information clears your mind from the question “What is VMware vSphere”. vCenter Server is the service through which you manage multiple ESXi hosts connected in a network and pool host resources. ESXi is the hypervsior, where you create and run virtual machines and virtual appliances. The two core components of VMware vSphere are ESXi server and vCenter Server. The VMware vSphere stack comprises virtualization, management, and interface layers.

VMware vSphere is the commercial name for entire VMware suite. VMware vSphere is not a specific product or software. I Will explain detailed architecture information about ESXi and vCenter server in the upcoming articles. Beginners who want to learn VMware virtualization often get confused with the different terms like VMware vSphere, VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter. This post i am going to focus the basics of VMware virtualization and also helps them to understand what is VMware vSphere with very basic information about VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter Server. I am getting lot of requests from the beginners, who want to start their career with VMware virtualization. We have talked lot about various VMware products and even deep dive articles about VMware vSphere and its components. Diff VCenter 5.5 appliance and vCenter on WIndows.Vmware hardware compatibility unknown.

Vsphere 5 vmware tools download