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September 5, 2008
Jeremy and VMWare ESX Server...Love at First Sight!
We take a break from our regularly scheduled Cisco programming to bring you this 'killer free-product' alert. I've now added VMWare ESX server (free) to my list of "programs that will change your life." I believe we actually have Microsoft to thank for making this product free since they're now trying to compete with VMWare by including Hypervising with MS Server 2008.
If you haven't seen it, VMWare ESX allows you to do essentially the same thing VMWare Server does, but without running on a client operating system (well, technically there's a 32MB VMWare operating system it runs now). I know, it doesn't sound that cool, but I can't begin to describe the performance increase for all my virutal machines. About 3 weeks ago, I converted my Dell Poweredge 2900 server to this product...Suddenly, I got a raise, my dog stopped barking, my neighbor brought me chocolate chip cookies, and I found an extra 5 bucks I had forgotten in my shorts pocket months ago (I love it when that happens).
Seriosuly...VMWare ESX server cannot be explained; you must experience it for yourself.
Posted by JC at September 5, 2008 7:52 PM
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Comments
Hi man!
Thanks for your posts :-)
When you say "free", you mean "free 60-day evaluation", don´t you?
I have just followed your link and what I see there is ""get an evaluation copy of VMware Infrastructure and try it for yourself.
Cheers
Posted by: Daniel at September 5, 2008 10:15 PM
The ESXi product is free. The bit you now pay for is the VirtualCenter management stuff which helps you manage multiple ESX servers. It is also life changing!
We've got a 10 node ESX cluster with all the VMotion stuff. It automatically moves VM's between the nodes depending on the load - with the VMs up and the user's aren't even aware it's happening. Mind-blowing!
Our ESX servers are trunked to Cisco switches so as we build new virtual servers we can stick them on any of our Dev/Test VLANs at the click of a mouse.
Posted by: Anonymous at September 6, 2008 12:43 AM
Ah - thanks Daniel; I've updated the link to point to the right product.
Posted by: JC at September 6, 2008 6:00 AM
VMWare ESX(i) is a nice product. Slimmed down Linux OS dedicated to running VM's is a pretty sweet system, especially for corporations looking to reduce their total power consumption and quickly manage recovery efforts, among the other awesome benefits of virtualization.
Problems like they had in August ( http://www.deploylinux.net/matt/2008/08/all-your-vms-belong-to-us.html ) can be scary if you're running it in a production environment though.
Posted by: Michael at September 6, 2008 12:59 PM
Hello.. if any of you are going to install ESXi a good starting place to look for supported hardware is http://ultimatewhitebox.com/
Posted by: `ariel at September 6, 2008 4:10 PM
Jeremy try their virtual appliance they are so cool just download and run no need to configure any thing I really liked NeDiVA http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/184
Posted by: Furat at September 21, 2008 9:34 PM
Jeremy, are you running Call Manager in ESXi? If so, what's the performance like?
Posted by: Mohammed at October 20, 2008 3:48 AM
Hi, I tried installing it on my old Centrino box however, Its Unable to find a supported device to write the VMWare ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 image to. This is exact error message. Can someone help me figure out the problem here.Thanks
Posted by: Ahmad at November 30, 2008 1:51 AM