Difference b/w VCSA 5.5 and vCenter Server 5.5

Feature

vCenter Server Appliance 5.5

vCenter Server 5.5 on Windows

Can be Deployed

Only as a Virtual Machine

Can be installed on Physical or
Virtual windows Machine

Operating System

Preconfigured Linux-based
virtual machine

vCenter 5.5 requires 64 Bit OS and 64 bit DSN:
Windows Server 2013 (64 bit)
Windows Server 2008 Sp2 (64 bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 Sp1 (64 bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit)

Database

PostgreSQL for the embedded database
Supports Oracle Database

SQL Server 2005 (SP4) (Standard\Enterprise)
(32-bit & 64-bit)

SQL Server 2008 (R2 SP2, R2 SP1) (Express\standard\Enterprise\Datacenter) (32-bit & 64-bit)

SQL Server 2012 (SP1) (Enterprise\Standard) (32-bit & 64-bit)

Oracle 11 G Release 2 (Enterprise\Standard) & Oracle 11G ONE edition (32-bit & 64-bit)

Installation Method

Deployed as a Virtual Machine using OVF or
OVA template

Need to install on top of Windows Operating System.

Hosts Per vCenter

100 Hosts with
embedded Postgres database
1000 Hosts with Oracle Database

1000 hosts per vCenter Server

Virtual Machines Per vCenter

3,000 VM’s with
embedded vPostgres database
10,000 VM’s with Oracle Database

10,000 VM’s per vCenter Server

vCenter Linked Mode

Not Supported

Supported with Windows Install

vCenter Server Heartbeat

Not Supported

vCenter heartbeat is a windows application.
It works with Windows install vCenter server

VMware Update Manager

You can’t install VUM on VCSA. Update Manager can be installed on separate windows machine to use with VCSA

Supported with Windows Install

AutoDeploy

Autodeploy is bundled with VCSA

Should be installed as an additional package. Installation files are located in vCenter Installation DVD

Syslog Collector

Syslog collector is installed by default

Should be installed as an additional package. Installation files are located in vCenter Installation DVD

ESXi Dump Collector Service

ESXi Dump Collector Service is installed by default

Should be installed as an additional package. Installation files are located in vCenter Installation DVD

vSphere Web Client

Pre-Installed with VCSA

Should be installed as an additional package. Installation files are located in vCenter Installation DVD

PowerCLI

Cannot be installed on vCSA

Can be installed on Windows vCenter Server machine

IPV6 support

IPv6 is not supported. Only supports IPV4

Both  IPv4 and IPv6 are supported