VMware to make ESXi free starting July 28th

[tfinch2]

http://www.informationweek.com...ml?articleID=209400823

 

[heymrdj]

Now if they could get their free VMWare right lol. A 1.x.x series that doesn't have a signed driver and thus can't be installed on 64bit Vista OS's. And a 2.x.x beta that feels like it should be back at alpha it has so many issues.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: heymrdj
Now if they could get their free VMWare right lol. A 1.x.x series that doesn't have a signed driver and thus can't be installed on 64bit Vista OS's. And a 2.x.x beta that feels like it should be back at alpha it has so many issues.

ESX is our flagship product. It will be just fine.

Vista is not supported as a host, which is why drivers are not signed for it. You can disable driver signing in Vista by pressing F8 on boot.

Server Beta 2 is slow because we leave asserts on for beta products.

 

[GhettoFob]

RC1 of Server 2.0 feels much better than the early betas. w00t for ESXi being free!

 

[Crusty]

How difficult is the migration from Server 1.6.0 to ESXi? Is it even worth it?

 

[Genx87]

It is really their only option if they want to remain on top of the market. Everybody can see the cost differences and the ease of use of Hyper V. This is a good proactive approach by VMWare.

 

[dphantom]

This is great. I was getting close to moving to MS Hypervisor, now I have other options. WOOHOOO!!

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Genx87
It is really their only option if they want to remain on top of the market. Everybody can see the cost differences and the ease of use of Hyper V. This is a good proactive approach by VMWare.

Reactive. Hyper V is already out.

 

[Pabster]

Yeah, they lost this round. HyperV ate their cake.

VMWare is still my favorite all-around VM but there's so many alternatives now.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Pabster
Yeah, they lost this round. HyperV ate their cake.

VMWare is still my favorite all-around VM but there's so many alternatives now.

Ate their cake in what way?

By releasing a hypervisor with no management suite, no live migration, and bad support for enterprise storage devices?

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Crusty
How difficult is the migration from Server 1.6.0 to ESXi? Is it even worth it?

It is not difficult at all with the Converter product. Yes it is worth it, especially for the performance benefits.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Pabster
Yeah, they lost this round. HyperV ate their cake.

VMWare is still my favorite all-around VM but there's so many alternatives now.

Ate their cake in what way?

By releasing a hypervisor with no management suite, no live migration, and bad support for enterprise storage devices?

Elaborate on bad support for enterprise storage devices. What does that mean exactly? Is there something that Windows supports that isn't supported on Hyper-V?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Pabster
Yeah, they lost this round. HyperV ate their cake.

VMWare is still my favorite all-around VM but there's so many alternatives now.

Ate their cake in what way?

By releasing a hypervisor with no management suite, no live migration, and bad support for enterprise storage devices?

Their support tools will be out soon. Which also includes physical to virtual conversion, virtual to virtual conversion(VMware to Hyper V), the ability to move VM's in case of physical failure, live backup of Virtual machines, and should support all storage devices.

But you can do most everything manually via the Hyper V role which is built into 08.

I dont want to get into a pissing match. But doesnt ESX have bad compatibility\support for iSCSI devices still?

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Pabster
Yeah, they lost this round. HyperV ate their cake.

VMWare is still my favorite all-around VM but there's so many alternatives now.

Ate their cake in what way?

By releasing a hypervisor with no management suite, no live migration, and bad support for enterprise storage devices?

Elaborate on bad support for enterprise storage devices. What does that mean exactly? Is there something that Windows supports that isn't supported on Hyper-V?

http://www.enterprisestoragefo...om/article.php/3758461

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
By releasing a hypervisor with no management suite, no live migration, and bad support for enterprise storage devices?

No, by building in to their wildly popular OS 95% of VMWare's functionality for no additional cost.

Hyper-V isn't perfect by any means but it represents a big leap forward by Microsoft.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Pabster
Yeah, they lost this round. HyperV ate their cake.

VMWare is still my favorite all-around VM but there's so many alternatives now.

Ate their cake in what way?

By releasing a hypervisor with no management suite, no live migration, and bad support for enterprise storage devices?

Elaborate on bad support for enterprise storage devices. What does that mean exactly? Is there something that Windows supports that isn't supported on Hyper-V?

http://www.enterprisestoragefo...om/article.php/3758461

k, yeah that's pretty FUDey but it looks like they've made at least one person swallow it


From the source that the article links to:
"VMFS provides on-disk locking to ensure that multiple servers do not power on a virtual machine at the same time. Should a server fail, the on-disk lock for each virtual machine is released so that virtual machines can be restarted on other physical servers"

and to really milk such a trivial thing they go on to say..

"Products like Xen and Microsoft Hyper-V lack an integrated cluster file system. As a result, storage provisioning is much more complex. For example, to enable independent migration and failover of virtual machines with Microsoft Hyper-V, one storage LUN must be dedicated to each virtual machine. "

...not exactly true. The cluster nodes would be running on different LUNs but the quorum drive would be shared as always.

I wouldn't call any of this "bad support for enterprise storage devices". Hyper-V is going to support any storage device that 2008 supports which is quite comprehensive list.

 

[her209]

w00t! Tomorrow's the 28th.

 

[jalaram]

Text

Enjoy.

According to the Hyper-V wiki site:

Hyper-V will also be available as a stand-alone offering, separate from Windows Server, as Microsoft Hyper-V Server.[1]

Does anyone know the time line for this? I assume it's only available for Server 2008 now.

 

[Genx87]

afaik Hyper V will require 64bit 08

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: heymrdj
Now if they could get their free VMWare right lol. A 1.x.x series that doesn't have a signed driver and thus can't be installed on 64bit Vista OS's. And a 2.x.x beta that feels like it should be back at alpha it has so many issues.

ESX is our flagship product. It will be just fine.

Vista is not supported as a host, which is why drivers are not signed for it. You can disable driver signing in Vista by pressing F8 on boot.

Server Beta 2 is slow because we leave asserts on for beta products.

That's pretty impetuous of a company to say that. Sure Vista has it's shortcomings, but man... Vista support should be a must as a host.

 

[Nothinman]

That's pretty impetuous of a company to say that. Sure Vista has it's shortcomings, but man... Vista support should be a must as a host.

For VMWare Workstation sure, but not really VMWare Server.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's pretty impetuous of a company to say that. Sure Vista has it's shortcomings, but man... Vista support should be a must as a host.

For VMWare Workstation sure, but not really VMWare Server.

Well, lots of people use Server on their desktops simply because it's free compared to Workstation.

 

[Nothinman]

Well, lots of people use Server on their desktops simply because it's free compared to Workstation.

I know and I agree it would be nice if Server worked flawlessly but I can understand why it's not a priority for VMWare.

 

[clarkey01]

Im quite new to ESX

We'r using 3.5 and are about to pay for it...


Whats the main differnce between the ESXI and ESX 3.5?

Is it worth the company saving money and moving over to ESXI ?

We just use ESX for TEST VM's ( Altiris , Deployment Solution) and dry runs.