Why would I want to use ESXi and not ESX 4?

[timjwatts]

It's a serious question...

I have to do a new deployment from scratch. Before I knew ESX was being depricated in favour if ESXi, I had assumed I would be working with a full host side linux enviroment. This is attractive to me because:

1. I want to script certain things for the host in perl (config file updates, eg sshd_config and more)
2. I want to run conserver on the host to give an endpoint for guest virtual serial ports (I like a root shell on my server serial ports for emerencies)
3. I may wish to to network traffic monitoring for the enture host.

Am I shooting myself in the foot by sticking with ESX? It seems lots of stuff isn't fully enabled on ESXi in terms of what can be done with scripting. And I'm not even sure if 2+3 is even possible at all...

Comments welcome

Cheers

Tim

[AndreTheGiant]

1. Script is still possible.. use vMA

2. No idea... but this kind of 3rd part software are not supported in ESX

3. You can use from vMA (but you have to enable promiscuos mode on the vSwitch).

The reason it's simple... ESX is dead... in vSphere 5.0 there is only ESXi... I think that this reason is enough

Andre

[timjwatts]

Hi Andre,

Oh heavens... I've been basing my design strategy on what I know about ESX 3.5. This could mean I will have to spend even longer in the "playing" cycle trying to figure if I can actually control the beast in its ESXi variation...

OK - good tip in the promisc mode of the vswitch - that makes sense.

Conserver would be a problem - I like using that (initially with 100's physical hosts + cyclades) as it both gives a quick but secure way in to a server, but more importantly one can catch kernel panics that do not make it to syslog... VCentre console does not really cut it - unless of course that can be go at via RDP or VNC (must read up on that).

Of course, although we are on the crossover of ESX4-5 our license is for VSphere 4 so I guess I still get the choice to stick with ESX and worry about it next time (which will be in about 5 years!)...

Thanks for you answers

Cheers,

Tim

[AndreTheGiant]

For vSphere 4.0 and 4.1 you can still choose between ESX and ESXi.

The syslog (and also SNMP) can be redirect also on ESXi.

About tcpdump, I forget to say that ESXi 5 include a modified version that can run from the ESXi shell.

Andre

[timjwatts]

+1 to you Andre for being mega helpful

Thanks - that all makes sense. I have just downloaded the full doc set for ESX + ESXi 4.1 for light reading on the train to work...

I am encouraged that some of the funky stuff will work on ESXi - and (if I have this correct) that there is a perl SDK to both ESX + ESXi (we like perl).

Thanks for taking the time - much appreciated!

Tim

[AndreTheGiant]

I suggest in any case, also with ESX, to deploy the vMA.

It's a Linux box with the Perl SDK and can be use to manage ESX and ESXi... so you can start to make practice on it.

Note that on ESXi 5 some CLI will change... some esxcfg-* will be removed and will go in the esxcli command.

Andre

[timjwatts]

Sounds like a good idea...

Also,  I noticed in the "What's New for 4.1" this:

"Access Virtual Machine Serial Ports Over the Network. You can redirect virtual machine serial ports over a standard network link in vSphere 4.1. This enables solutions such as third-party virtual serial port concentrators for virtual machine serial console management or monitoring. See the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide."

Woohoo - that solves that problem!

Cheers,

Tim

[DSTAVERT]

I just saw thet a new virtual serial port concentrator has been released on sourceforge released by forum member @ZMerLynn. https://sourceforge.net/p/vspcpy/