Hi there,
Just a brief announcement... As part of my work on the new book (vi3book.com) I've been working with the creator of the Ultimate Deployment Appliance (Carl Thijssen). I used UDA 1.3 and was so impressed that I contacted Carl to add ESX 3.x support to the UDA.
UDA is used to deploy physical or virtual machines by pressing F12 on the keyboard using either kickstart or MS unattended files to automate the installation. I've worked with Carl to ESX 3.x.x support to the appliance. So if you don't Alteris and HP RDP or IBM RDM manager this should do the job. So you can now install ESX 3.x.x remotely - all you need is an ILO/RAC/IP-KVM and locate F12 on the keyboard - and you can free yourself of cd-roms and usb keys.
The UDA comes in two flavours. A VMware Workstation (should work on VMware Server too?) version to carry around on your laptop (this is hosted both on ultimatedeployment.org and rtfm-ed.co.uk).
There is an ESX version is hosted on rtfm-ed.co.uk with mirrors provided by former student of mine, Brian Smyth. (Thanks Brian)... The ESX version contains some sample kickstart scripts created by me (modify at your own risk). I've also written a brief getting started guide on rtfm-ed.co.uk. I hope to add a multimedia demo for people who are too lazy to RTFM.
Lastly, the kickstart samples are available separately from rtfm-ed.co.uk for those people who prefer to use the VMware Workstation version.
As ever these projects are community supported. Carl has setup a PHP forum on his .org domain. Additionally, there is forum thread in the User Solution sections here:
Home » VMTN Discussion Forums » VMTN Solutions Area » Virtual Appliances » Ultimate Deployment Appliance
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=43958&tstart=0
Links:
(VMware Workstation Version)
http://www.ultimatedeployment.org
(VMware ESX Server Version)
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=366
(Quickstart Guides)
PDF: http://www.rtfm-ed.eu/docs/vmwdocs/uda-1.4.pdf
PDF: http://www.rtfm.copperstream.co.uk/docs/vmwdocs/uda-1.4.pdf
PDF: http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/docs/vmwdocs/uda-1.4.pdf
Happy deploying - we have Carl Thijssen to thank for this! 
Regards
Mike
