ESXi vs. VMWare Server (Is ESXi right for me?)

[TheGameAh]

Hey guys.

A lot of this is just thinking (typing) out loud. But opinions/feedback are welcome.

In our small network, I needed to consolidate a few servers. Cost was a factor, whereas the robust features of ESX wasn't a concern. The solution, just build your own "poor man's" VMWare Server. Threw together a Debian box, installed VMWare, and let it fly. Been running fine quite a while now. It's backed up just by suspending the VMs overnight, tarring and moving, then resuming.

Now, ESXi is a free product. Hmmm, bare metal virtualization. Very appealing. I'll probably download a copy just to test and play with.

However, now I'm seeing a few gotchas. The addons, of course, cost money. I read that you need a Windows machine to load a client to manage the server. Yuck. Right, I just use SSH/VMWare console, which works beautifully.

A few other things I'll miss too. ESXi needs server class hardware, where I normally just build my own servers. Also, having the Debian OS lets me do things like software RAID, where ESXi I'm assuming does not.

So it looks like I'll stay with VMWare server for now. But did I miss any points above that someone else caught?

[HermanAB]

Don't believe all the marketing blurbs...

VMWare ESXi appears to me to be a modified Redhat Linux. So in practice, it is probably still best to install your favourite Linux distribution with VMware Server or Workstation on top.

Cheers,

Herman

[fjgaude]

Don't believe all the marketing blurbs...

VMWare ESXi appears to me to be a modified Redhat Linux. So in practice, it is probably still best to install your favourite Linux distribution with VMware Server or Workstation on top.

Cheers,

Herman

Okay, beginning to understand, appreciate what ESX and ESXi are... sounds reasonable when you think how long VMware has been in business, along with Redhat. <smile>

[PilotJLR]

Don't believe all the marketing blurbs...

VMWare ESXi appears to me to be a modified Redhat Linux. So in practice, it is probably still best to install your favourite Linux distribution with VMware Server or Workstation on top.

Cheers,

Herman

NO!! This is totally wrong.

ESXi has no service console. It is not linux. It is a bare metal hypervisor and is much faster and more advanced than Server!

You are thinking (probably) of the service console in ESX... well, that's incorrect as well. The SC in ESX in a management domain (like dom0 in Xen) that allows host management features. Its kernel does not run the hypervisor... VMkernel does that.

Be clear on this... ESX and ESXi are not linux!

[walkerk]

double post.

[walkerk]

> ESX (20Mb) requires a license but offers more advanced options such as iSCSI.
> ESXi (32Mb) is free and gets the job done in most cases.

Once you've loaded ESXi, the only thing you'll configure directly on the ESiX host is the network configuration.

You will use a VMWare client on a separate physical machine to gain remote access to the ESXi server. At this point you can create Virtual Machines on the ESXi server from this or any other standalone physical machine with the client installed and the ESXi host login information.

Example ESX server installations:

1. ESXi
2. VM #1 (Server 2003 / DC)
3. VM #2 (Server 2003 / Exchange)
4. VM #3 (Server 2003 / File Print Server)

All of the VMs are managed remotely from a standalone physical machine, in my case a laptop.

This is my next project at work.

My last project:

1. ESXi
2. VM #1 (Server 2003 / Ciscoworks LMS)
3. VM #2 (Server 2003 / Solarwinds)
4. VM #3 (Server 2003 / Syslog)

I'm diggin ESXi

Oh and there are hardware requirements. I tried loading it on my work XPS 1710 to test before blowing away a server but it didn't satisfy the hardware requirements. FYI.

[PilotJLR]

Just to clarify... ESX is about 1.2 GB installed and is NOT free. ESX is also what (currently) does include a Service Console. The SC is not the hypervisor... but it is what you see, which mistakenly makes people think ESX=linux.

ESXi comes in 2 forms... ESXi Installable is free and can be installed directly onto a hard disk.
ESXi Embedded is not free and ships embedded into some specific servers and blades.

Good point about the hardware... ESX and ESXi and picky and will not run on some systems. If ESXi doesn't work on your hardware... then you're down to options like VMware Server, Xen, KVM, etc.
Although noticably slower and with fewer features, the nice thing about VMware Server is that it will work, provided you can get Linux or Windows to install on the machine!

[gtdaqua]

When ESXi was made free, I installed on a Dell Server. Definitely, the performance incerases. But, you lose manageability unless you want to buy the expensive virtual centre.

Another dirty thing is you cant manage the ESXi server from a linux machine. You need .NET Framework 2 to manage it. So it is not os independent. So a lot of drawbacks and lock-ins to pull the customer inside. If you are managing multiple servers, ESXi will be better ONLY with Virtual Centre which is insanely expensive for SMBs.

Not all that good as it seemed when it was made free. I went back to the VMware Server Edition and installed SNMP and Dell's OMSA to monitor individual components.

[TheGameAh]

This is exactly what I've been messing with in my head. Dying to try ESXi, but I lose some of the Debian additions I like to much.

Like software raid, and SSH, etc.

VMWare server it is, for now

Now I'm trying to think about how much VMWare server can handle. I've got a server tiny servers (Blackberry, Terminal Server, etc). But was wondering if a 200+ gigabyte file server is a good idea to virtualize.

[gtdaqua]

...........

.. But was wondering if a 200+ gigabyte file server is a good idea to virtualize.

It is good. At least, I cant say its bad. I have a 250GB VMWare server running rock solid. Size does not matter (atleast for 200G).