Mixing ESX with ESXi

[Bboy-Mass]

Hello,

I currently run ESX 3.2 with VC 2.0.1 and I was wondering if I could implement some free ESXi hosts into the farm for running non-mission critical Redhat and Windows servers?

I've been advised to keep costs down (like everyone else) and I could do with runnning more ESX hosts to lighten the load. I have the current setup:

3xESX 3.2 running on HP BL45p Blades

NETAPP SAN and EVA storage datastores with about 50 VM's (90%Windows 10%Linux)

Could I incorporate a couple of ESXi into the mix and drop some VMs onto them and manage the lot from VC?

If its possible, i think ill round up every bit of hardware we have and hyper-visor them with ESXi.

Makes sense

R,

Nigel

Unix Operations Manager

[weinstein5]

Yes you can mixe ESX and ESXi in your environment but you will need to make sure you have the approriate VC Agent licenses to support the free ESXi servers you plan to add and if you plan to use HA, DRS and vmotion you will need the pproriate licenses as well -

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[Leafy911]

Hi

I believe you would have to update your VC and the client agents on your ESX3.2 servers. This would allow you to manage the ESX3i servers your thinking of implementing.

Regards

Leafy911

(Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)

[Bboy-Mass]

Ok, thanks guys.

I just rembered why we did not go with ESX3.5 now. Was because we would have had a nightmare migrating VC to a higher level before we performed the upgrdade on ESX.

Can I stay on VC 2.0.1 and manage my ESX3.2 and ESXi or do I have to migrate to a higher VC?

Once the developers have finished playing, I plan on rebuilding everything and only use Netapp storage (scsi resets are a nightmare with two sans), but i really need more ESX servers now.

I'm curently on platinum support, doe's this allow for multiple ESX instances or will I have to buy more licences?

I dont use VMOTION (we have the lic) as it never seems to work the way we want it too. So i'm only interested in running as many dev Vm's as possible for the least amount of money.

Regards,

Nigel

[weinstein5]

If you do not need to manage the ESX servers by Virtual Center - the least expensive route is to stand up the free ESXi hosts and manage each one independently through the VI Client -

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[NTurnbull]

Keep an eye on Kodiak from BlueBear, its only on beta at the mo but looks very interesting!

As for the VC versions and ESXi interoperability, the answer is no, you would have to upgrade your VirtualCenter Server version - See the VC/ESX compatibility matrix - page 2/3

Thanks,

Neil

[Ken_Cline]

Moved to more appropriate forum

Ken Cline

Technical Director, Virtualization

Wells Landers

TVAR Solutions, A Wells Landers Group Company

VMware Communities User Moderator

[azn2kew]

I'm not sure how you implemented your ESX VMotion and upgrading Virtual Center, but I've implemented them many times and upgrades went well. You might spend sometimes planning, architecting and implementing your project from the ground up and make sure its all redundant across ESX clusters and SAN (iSCSI, NFS, FC) perspective. VMotion should easily configure and make it working, otherwise you have problems with networkings and shared storage issues also might be CPU compatability problem can be accomplish by disabling the NX flag settings or EVC settings. Besides, those HA, DRS and VMotion then I would use David's recommendation for standing up ESXi free and use RCLI and VIMA to manage them that's priceless and more secure due to removal of SC.

You can check out new compatability guide to see if your storage is listed because Virtual Center 3.5 U4 is released and it might update the lists as well. Good luck on your implementation.

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant