esxi 5 free hypervisor?

[gallagauge]

I saw that there is a new version of esxi (version 5).

Will there be a version 5 of the free VMware vSphere Hypervisor or is this product going to stay at version 4.1?

[ZeroGravity2011]

Rickard wrote:

It is still somewhat unclear if there is almost unlimited RAM available (up to 1 TB per virtual machine) or 8 GB of vRAM in total.

VMware says both things: http://rickardnobel.se/archives/620

Read the other features listed on the Compare page, that list is listing the technical features of ESX not necessarily the licensed features. It's pretty straightforward.

[rickardnobel]

GVD wrote:

then the free Hypervisor will also have a hard limit. It would cause an even larger riot if the free version had more rights than the Essentials...

It is still kind of unusual to try to make the competitors look bad for "only" allowing 64 and 32 GB per VM and for your own product only allow 8 GB in total.

There is something serious incorrect on the information page for vSphere Hypervisor 5 at the moment. It would be nice if VMware could give information what is true, 8 GB total or 1 TB per VM?

[GVD]

I'd say that the 1 TB limitation is the platform (architectural) limitation. The 8 GB is the licensing limitation.

Capable of 1 TB with the right license (like what? 21 Enterprise+ licenses? :P), but without a license it's only 8 GB.

I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen no one refute this.

[rickardnobel]

ZeroGravity wrote:

Read the other features listed on the Compare page, that list is listing the technical features of ESX not necessarily the licensed features. It's pretty straightforward.

It is not pretty straightforward. Look at the top of the chart which very clearly states that is features of the "VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.0" listed. The whole page is about the free version. The chart obvious gives incorrect information regarding the differences between VMwares free version and Hyper-V and XEN.

[spiralscratch]

I had been planning to set up one or two test/trial machines using v5, but the limit of 8GB on vRAM absolutely kills it. I can't imagine any kind of substantial setup that could fit within so little vRAM. It makes more sense to go with physical servers instead.

The licensing scheme across the entire v5 line is absolute insanity.

I'm now looking towards Xen or KVM instead.

[prostar]

Hard limit of 8GB makes vSphere Hypervisor next to useless. Time to familiarize myself with Xen ... and with that all my customers.

[Bernhard_Diener]

Roger, the vRAM limit means guests can use up to 8 GB, right? The server itself can use up to 256 GB RAM (at least version 4.1 could).

[rickardnobel]

the vRAM limit means guests can use up to 8 GB, right? The server itself can use up to 256 GB RAM (at least version 4.1 could).

If the 8 GB vRAM limit is correct then all guests together can use 8 GB of RAM.

[Bernhard_Diener]

No. Our server (4.1 free) uses 24 GB and the guest nearly use all of it, much more than 8 GB.

[RogerThomas]

Bernhard Diener wrote:

Roger, the vRAM limit means guests can use up to 8 GB, right? The server itself can use up to 256 GB RAM (at least version 4.1 could).

This new vRAM limit seems to be the total amount of memory that can be allocated to all VMs on a system running the free hypervisor, regardless of the number of processors on the system.

I have to say I've already upgraded my ESXi test server from 4.1 to XenServer 5.6. I have to say things like the GUI are not as feature rich but it seems to run VMs without any issues.

[rickardnobel]

Bernhard Diener wrote:

No. Our server (4.1 free) uses 24 GB and the guest nearly use all of it, much more than 8 GB.

The 8 GB vRAM limit is for the upcoming 5.0 free Hypervisor, the 4.x version had no such memory limits.

[golddiggie]

I just started reading the install doc for xen 5.6... Talk about F'd up... You want to run Linxu VMs? You need to install this extra item. Plus, the footprint of xen 5.6 is freakin HUGE compared with ESXi... Needs 16GB (according to the docs) for local drives. Pretty much forget about installing to flash/USB thumb drives. Plus, IF you want to use anything above the free version, you MUST setup a license server. That went away, for ESX/ESXi, when v4 came out...

While I do think that the VMware product IS superior to the others (technology based) I have a feeling that more companies/organizations will be shifting away from it simply due to costs. Why would I need to pay 12k to be able to fully utilize my servers/hosts (previously spending <6k) when I can spend just 5k on the highest version of xen?? Xen is licensed per host server, not CPU's, RAM, etc... Physical box there... VMware needs to take notice at how pissed off people are over their shift. We accepted the per CPU licensing before, because we could justify it to the powers that be. Now, with it being limited by how much vRAM is being used (easily being more than the pRAM in the hosts) we're hosed.

[Bernhard_Diener]

What do you mean?

As I wrote, we use 4.1 free. Our server has 24 GB and the guests’ RAM adds up to more than 20 GB.

@ricnob

Sorry, I did not read your whole message. Ok, I understand that they created a vRAM limit in version 5. But really for all machines 8 GB in total as Roger says?

I cannot believe it.

Message was edited by: Bernhard Dien…

[rickardnobel]

Bernhard Diener wrote:

What do you mean?

As I wrote, we use 4.1 free. Our server has 24 GB and the guests’ RAM adds up to more than 20 GB.

What do you really mean? The thread is about the changes in the upcoming free version 5.0, which will have a 8 GB vRAM limit for all guests in total.

[Bernhard_Diener]

See my editing above.

Well... then it's 8 GB in total. Wow...

[Bolgard]

Feelin' a bit tricked here actually. Just recently upgraded my server to quadcore with 12 GB RAM and installed ESXi 4.1 on a internal USB-flashdrive. It's been working great so far. We're running three virtual machines, and had actually planned a maintenance upgrade this weekend. I was thrilled when ESXi 5 was released, thought I should install it directly. Turns out I won't

Is there any other free virtualization platform which is installable on a USB-flashdrive (8GB), supporting the Dell RAID-controller without this stupid limit? I guess I was fooled into this VMware-environment... even if we did have the money to do an upgrade, I sure as hell ain't going to do it now. I'd rather by Hyper-V than buy VMware, which is really sad. It's a great product. I'd actually imagined hosting a licensed vSphere-environment with paid licenses when this company has grown in the future.. it all went to dust :smileysilly:

[einstein-a-go-g]

I believe that the new limit for VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.0 (ESXi 5.0) is 8GB ram total per server.

VMware have stated that the Free version of VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.0 (ESXi 5.0) should be used for Test and Development purposes ONLY, and not Production.

After you have completed testing, you should purchase a license to upgrade the vRAM entitlement.

Just my $0.02c

[wdroush1]

golddiggie wrote:

Needs 16GB (according to the docs) for local drives. Pretty much forget about installing to flash/USB thumb drives.    

Are your ordering your USB drives from 2004?

Though I agree XenServer falls back on a few things, it doesn't fall back nearly enough for me to justify paying $1000 so I can run ESXi at home.

[einstein-a-go-g]

I don't think we will be see-ing many folk upgrade Free ESXi 4.1 --> ESXi 5.0 servers, but as the upgrade process is so easy, with an easy in place upgrade that detects the ESXi 4.1 installation, and your upgraded in 10 minutes from CD-ROM, this is bound to cause many issues for Home Labs, as now way back to VMFS3 from VMFS5!

I'm sure there will be some, scratching their heads, why they cannot use more than 8GB, on these very forums in the future, asking why!!!!

[ITGeezer]

I think they've missed a trick here.

I agree the free hypervisor with the 8GB limit is next to useless ... but I for one would be willing to pay for a 16GB or even 32GB limit ... but I wouldn't pay for Essentials at £430 + Tax in the UK because (a) that's a lot of money and (b) I don't need everything it includes.

I'd be quite happy however to pay something similar to what Workstation costs (£150 + Tax) for single server dual socket 16GB or 32GB with none of the extras - i.e. just the Hypervisor but with a higher memory limit.