VMware - ESXi Cost and features?

Hi,
  I'm putting together a test environment completely separate from our production. We want to utilize VMware for rolling out a test domain, DC's, Exchange, etc. We only have 1 physical server at this time, and I'm thinking we could simply install ESXi and create the vm's via vshpere client. However, I'm being told that we NEED vcenter and this is expensive. From my understanding, Vcenter is to be able to centrally manage the virtual environment, and for HA, DR, and a bunch of other management features; but for 1 host, we can do this completely free.
Any advise is appreciated.

Thanks
Scotch TechITAsked:
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Luciano PatrãoICT Senior Infraestructure  Engineer  Commented:
Hi,

You will need always an ESXi host license. Besides that, yes you can create VMs, Networks etc., just with one single ESXi host just using the web VMware Host Client.

Jail

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Scotch TechITAuthor Commented:
thanks
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