Differences between ESX and ESXi

[jhoge]

I'm totally confused by VMWare's marketing and branding strategies.

First it seemed clear: ESXi was a limited, free givaway and ESX was the more robust paid product. The approach seemed to be to give away the free ESXi hypervisor so people could install it on an old box to get comfortable with hypervisor technology so that they would then shell out big bucks for ESX and new HCL-approved hardware.

But then there's vSphere, which contains ESXi (or is it ESX?) which is a paid product. So if ESXi is not free, what's the difference between ESX and ESXi? Are they different labels for the same product? Is one designed to be installable and the other one embedded? Is ESX going to be phased out in favor of ESXi?

I know that they're both hypervisors, but everything else is clear as mud.

And then there is backup - vSphere Essentials contains VMWare Consolidated Backup, which apparently is a horse on it's way to the glue factory. I think that backup software would fit anyone's defenition of "Essentials".

The next step up seems to be "Essentials Plus" which is about 10x the cost of "Essentails" and does provide backup capabilities. What seems to be lacking is a SKU for a one server environment that features a simple backup software built in at decent price. Is such a thing in the works? I'm tempted to hold out until all of this settles out.

[golddiggie]

To me, there's never been any confusion on the differences between ESX and ESXi...

Main things, and really the only ones you need to be at all concerned with, is that ESX has the Service Console (SC) with it, and requires a DVD to install on the host. ESXi has no SC and easily fits onto a CD for install onto the host. With the release of 4.1, a good chunk of the differences that there used to be have gone away. Things like being able to SSH/telnet into the host server (can be enabled on ESXi 4.1 hosts on the host first, and then via vCenter as needed).

For licenses, you have the exact same set for either ESX or ESXi. Currently it's YOUR choice as to which you install. IF you need the SC, then go with ESX. If, however, you really don't NEED the SC of old and can do what you really NEED to do under what's available under ESXi, then go with ESXi... I highly recommend going with ESXi now so that you can upgrade to later versions/releases. VMware has made it well known that 4.1 is the LAST time they will be offering both ESX and ESXi... The future releases will JUST be ESXi...

ESXi has some additional benefits over ESX... For one thing, there's the smaller footprint, easier install, and with the removal of the SC, higher security. There's also the fact that there will be less things that VMware will need to patch with the SC gone...

You CAN do a lot of what you use the SC for with additional (free) tools/utilities/VA's... Things like the vMA and the PowerShell CLI to name just two.

At this point, unless you have critical items that will ONLY work under ESX, such as B&R software, you should at least start installing ESXi (4.1) onto hosts whenever possible. You can administrate both ESX and ESXi, 4.0 and 4.1, from the same vCenter 4.1 server. Personally, I've used VM's for vCenter installs since 4.0 was released... Have had zero troubles going that route. If anything, it's made things a great deal easier, more reliable and more stable. Unless you have a huge environment (talking numbers of hosts here) you shouldn't have any trouble using a VM for the vCenter Server. Just make sure you use a separate server (VM or otherwise, VM is my primary choice) for the SQL server. Do NOT use SQL Express for this. No matter what number of hosts you have, you'll be far better off (especially in the long run) using full SQL (2005 or 2008)... I would also avoid using Server 2008 R2. IF you must use Server 2008, use the non-R2 release, but do go with the x64 for vCenter (actually, you have to use the x64 release)...

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