VMware Cloud Community
tWiZzLeR
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VMware to release ESX 3i for free next week

VMware finally made the move that everybody predicted and was awaited for a long time: releasing its hypervisor for free.

During the Q2 2008 earnings call the company announced that before the end of July it will release the Update 2 for VMware Infrastructure 3.5 and that will give away the lightweight edition of the product, ESX 3i, for free.

Story continued at source:

Reply
0 Kudos
7 Replies
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

One good thing to note is that you're entitled to a rebate if you bought ESXi from VMware's online store.

Reply
0 Kudos
K-MaC
Expert
Expert

Theres a quick little blurb about it if you sign into the VMWare Partner page. It states that the new pricing will start the week of July 28th.

This seems like a smart move on VMWare's part to cut off Microsoft. Although it would be nice if they reduced prices across the board, this is a good start.

Kevin

Cheers Kevin
Reply
0 Kudos
Flicka
Contributor
Contributor

This is great news! Our company works in the SMB space, and this will be a real deal changer for us...

Does anyone know of a comprehensive comparison of the latest shipping versions of the following?

  1. ESX 3.5

  2. ESX 3i Update 2 (not 1)

  3. VMware Server 2.x

  4. Hyper-V

  5. Citrix Zen

  6. Sun xVM (assuming their server is shipping- having trouble nailing this down)

This is something we could use for sales planning and in competitive situations, particularly with Win2008 + Hyper-V. Additionally, I am looking for feature comparisons which track what works on what processor families, particularly when the virt. microcode extensions are required. A lot of SMB customers are still one generation back on servers, so not everything they have is running the latest processors.

Finally-- anybody want to hazard a guess on what this will do for the VMware stock price in 2009?

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
Ilia_shapira
Contributor
Contributor

How can I gearebate if I made an order in the online store ?

Reply
0 Kudos
K-MaC
Expert
Expert

Hello Ilia, I am not sure at this point how you would go about getting a rebate. However, I am sure that once July 28th rolls around all the information required for a rebate will be made available.

Cheers

Kevin

Cheers Kevin
Reply
0 Kudos
mikelane
Expert
Expert

I have some questions about the benefits of this for home use where all of the feattures of the full blown ESX suite are not needed.

1. If I can install ESX on a particular white box, does the same hold true for ESX 3i?

2. Making the assumption that I could install this on a white box, how would I administer ESX 3i? Don't I need virtual infrastructure client (VIC) to remotely administer ESX 3i? Or could I do it the hard way and do it through the command line logged in to the server itself? If I need VIC to administer the server then it is no longer really "free". I am guessing that I get a command line on the server itself (although there seems to be some sort of wizard for creating VMs) and that I can SSH to the same command line remotely?

3. I assume that I can port VMWare Appliances to ESX 3i?

4. Can ESX 3i be installed to SATA with the workarounds that exist for ESX?

5. Can i "easily" back up VMs to a NAS for example without having a VMFS partition - ie can I export the VMs from ESX 3i

I am just trying to get a handle on the potential pitfalls of trying to get this running at home, so any pointers / advice will be very much apprecaited!

Mike

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

1. If I can install ESX on a particular white box, does the same hold true for ESX 3i?

For the most part yes. Here's a list of whiteboxes and a number have tested OK for ESX and ESXi. http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/Whiteboxes_SATA_Controllers_for_ESX_3.5_3i.htm. The challenge would be for storage controllers that result in the "mounting root failed" error on ESX 3.5. You have to work around that in a different way on ESXi by creating a customer oem.tgz file.

how would I administer ESX 3i? Don't I need virtual infrastructure client (VIC) to remotely administer ESX 3i?

Yes, you would still need a Windows PC to run the VI client on. You can also enable SSH on ESXi, but it is not supported as it is on ESX - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_enable_SSH.php

3. I assume that I can port VMWare Appliances to ESX 3i?

Yes

4. Can ESX 3i be installed to SATA with the workarounds that exist for ESX?

A lot of SATA devices will work without changes, but for those that don't see by comment above.

5. Can i "easily" back up VMs to a NAS for example without having a VMFS partition - ie can I export the VMs from ESX 3i

You wouldn't be able to mount a share as you do with the ESX service console, but you can manually copy files, script something with the RCLI / powershell and hopefully esXpress will support ESXi soon as they do provide a free version of their backup software.

Reply
0 Kudos