USB wireless adapters and Win7 quests

[Dbed]

Hi All,

I need to have several Wi-Fi equipped Windows7 guests on the host running ESXi. Each guest has to be connected via Wi-Fi to its own dedicated Wi-Fi access point. All the access points are working on different channels and serving different SSID's, so, I guess, I can't share the adapters between guests but have to have a dedicated adapter for each guest.

That's why I suggest to plug several USB Wi-Fi adapters to the host via USB Hub and dedicate each one to the only one guest using VMDirectPath.

Unfortunately, I can not test this in a lab as a server for the host and adapters are subjects to buy depending on the answers and further investigations..

Sorry, but also I haven’t yet any practical experience with ESXi.

So the questions are

1. Has anybody deployed such a scheme or similar?

2. I’ve already understood that I should choose the server which is compatible with ESXi http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

and has a CPU supporting vPro, VT-d (Directed I/O) http://ark.intel.com/#server

What else should I take into considerations choosing the correct server and USB Wi-Fi adapter for this task?

3. What release of ESXi is the most suitable for this task, 4.1 or 5?

Any help and response are very appreciated.

[JasonAngelLLC]

1.) I have 2 VMs each with their own USB Wi-Fi Receiver and each picking up different signals. The USBs are also plugged into a 4-port hub on the host machine running ESXi 4.1U2. You just have to take it slow and add one piece at a time. Shut down OS and restart for each piece and take your time.

2.) My main objective would have to be to make sure the server/cpu supports hardware virtualization (aka intel virtualization) and that it can be turned on. Microsoft has a tool called HAV Detection Tool; you could have someone run that on the server via windows 7. Without this support you cannot create a 64bit VM even on a 64bit cpu server. This is also required for CentOS and the ability to see several CPUs in a VM. On a side note Win7 VMs actually run well with little RAM assigned.

3.) I am using 4.1 and it works well. But, I would look to get a server that is supported by 5. You will have better luck in the future and with the hardware virtualization.

~Jason

[JasonAngelLLC]

It doesnt work so well!

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/390454?tstart=0