Difference Between vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 and vCenter Server 5.5 on Windows

vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 is reducing the dependency of Windows operating system for vCenter server Install. With VCSA 5.5 on Embedded database can manage 100 hosts and 3000 Virtual Machines. vCSA reduces lot of administrative efforts by reducing efforts needed for windows patching, software update and management of Guest OS on windows operating system. It is necessary to understand the difference between the vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 and vCenter server 5.5 installed on windows Server. This post will explain you the detailed difference between the 2 items.

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 2012 (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 vPostgres 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