What you need for this book

You will learn about the software requirements for every vSphere component covered in this book in their respective chapters, but to start with a basic lab setup, you will need at least two ESXi hosts, a vCenter Server instance, a Domain Controller, a DHCP server, a DNS server, and a TFTP Server. For learning purposes, you don't really need to run ESXi on physical machines.

You can use VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion to set up a hosted lab on your PC or Mac, provided the machine has adequate compute and storage capacity.

For shared storage, you can use any of the following free virtual storage applications:

• Celerra UBER 3.2: http://nickapedia.com/2010/10/04/play-it-again-sam-celerra-uber-v3-2/
• OpenFiler: https://www.openfiler.com
• HP StoreVirtual Storage: http://www8.hp.com/in/en/products/data-storage/storevirtual.html