6. Installing vCenter - The LAB Way - With 6GB Memory

Now that we have our ESXi server and AD+DNS server ready. I have created a DNS record on the DNS server to make sure the installation doesn't fail in anyway

Before, we proceed I have recently gone through a situation where i had to upgrade vCenter in an customer production environment from 6.7 to 7.0, however i wanted to make sure the upgrade goes fine without any issues . To replicate the same i have installed ESXi in my local laptop which has 16GB memory on an VMware workstation and installed vCenter. vCenter 6.7 installation went fine consuming 10GB memory however when i tried upgrading to 7.0 it was trying to consume 12GB because of which it was failing and obviously my windows will not allow if it gets less than 4GB, that is when my friend suggested me a blog on how to install vCenter 7.0 with 6GB memory strictly restricting to a Lab environment and not in Production.

Below are the steps i followed to install vCenter 7.0 with 6GB Memory.

• Download version of vCenter which you want to install and extract the same to a folder.
• Once extracted go to the below path within the folder 

    "E:\Lab\vc\VMware-VCSA-all-7.0.3-19234570\vcsa-ui-installer\win32\resources\app\dist\resources"

• Edit the file layout.json with notepad and with the same file you will be able to see multiple installtion types from xlarge to large, make sure to select tiny and change the below memory to 6148 which indicates 6GB.

• Save the file and start with your installation.
• Note that memory might show 12gb in settings and under ESXi but from the resource monitor of the VM it would actually take only 6GB
• Make sure to create a DNS record both forward and reverse for the vCenter.
• Once all are set follow below process to install vCenter

• Below is where you can see memory reflecting to 6GB

• Choose datastore and make sure to enable thin disk and continue the installation

• Input FQDN,IP and other details and continue

• Make sure all the details are clear and click finish to install

• You should see the installation process as below

• Once the first stage of vCenter is deployed successfully, you should see a VM deployed in your ESXi and vCenter deployment advancing to stage-2

• Input necessary configuration details and click next to install the final stage of installation

• Once vCenter is installed, access the same using IP from a browser, Create Cluster and add ESXi host to the cluster as shown below and we are good to go.