VSphere 7.0 introduces vSphere Lifecycle Manager, a centralized and simplified lifecycle management mechanism for VMware ESXi 7.0 hosts. As these services are now part of vCenter Server, they are no longer described as a part of Platform Services Controller. All Platform Services Controller services are consolidated into vCenter Server, simplifying deployment and administration. The new vCenter Server appliance contains all the Platform Services Controller services from earlier releases, preserving all previous functionality, including authentication, certificate management, and licensing. Learn About Some of Our Featuresīeginning in vSphere 7.0, you can only deploy or upgrade to vCenter Server 7.0 using an appliance. Want to know what is in the current release of vSphere? Look at the latest vSphere release notes. vCenter Server is the service through which you manage multiple hosts connected in a network and pool host resources. ESXi is the virtualization platform where you create and run virtual machines and virtual appliances. The two core components of vSphere are ESXi and vCenter Server. vSphere manages these infrastructures as a unified operating environment, and provides you with the tools to administer the data centers that participate in that environment. VMware vSphere is VMware's virtualization platform, which transforms data centers into aggregated computing infrastructures that include CPU, storage, and networking resources.