vCenter Server can be installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP1 or later, Microsoft Windows Server 2016 included. Starting with vSphere 6.5, vCenter Server supports a mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environment. This means that you can connect vCenter Server with an IPv4 address to vCenter Server with an IPv6 address.
Before proceeding with the installation, make sure all vSphere components have their clocks synchronized to avoid issues in communication between network machines due to the SSL certificates, which are time sensitive.
To avoid security problems, the use of a dedicated account for the vCenter Server service is recommended since the Windows built-in system account has more permissions on the server that vCenter Server needs. The user account configured in vCenter Server should be granted with the following permissions:
- Member of the Administrators group
- Log on as a service
- Act as part of the OS (if the user is a domain user)
Installing vCenter Server on a network drive or USB flash drive is not supported. If you use Active Directory (AD), the vCenter Server cannot be installed on a Domain Controller (DC).
Because vCenter Server stores the information on a database, let's analyze the criteria of database selection.