GUI in vSphere

Besides the direct console user interface, there are two other interfaces that can be used to configure your vSphere environment:

  • vSphere Client – this Windows-only application used to be the primary administrative interface in vSphere. The vSphere Client can be used to connect to a VMware vCenter Server instance or directly to an ESXi host. It offers a rich graphical user interface for all management tasks and for the advanced configuration of your vSphere environment.

vsphere client

  • vSphere Web Client – a browser-based, platform-independent implementation of the vSphere Client based on Adobe Flex. This client is used to connect to a vCenter Server system to manage an ESXi host through a browser and enables administrators to manage a virtual infrastructure without needing to install vSphere Client on a system. The vSphere Web Client will eventually replace Windows-based vSphere Client entirely.

vsphere_web_client

Note that you can only use vSphere Client to connect to your ESXi host. ESXi host cannot be accessed directly using vSphere Web Client. This is illustrated in the following picture (source: VMware):

vmware vshpere graphical user interfaces guis


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