ESXi 3.5 to be available for free next week

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Virtualization.info is reporting that VMware announced during their financial update today that ESXi would be available for free starting next week with no requirement to purchase support. More details here -

[vmroyale]

WOW! Very interesting...

[Chris_Howard]

Very interesting.

I wonder why they aren't making ESX (not i) 3.5 free too, as they have the same functionality?

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[gary1012]

Yes, interesting indeed... I wonder what will happen to the cost of add-on full-feature products such as VCMS, VDM, etc.?

[kimono]

I wonder why they aren't making ESX (not i) 3.5 free too, as they have the same functionality?

....a strategic decision I reckon. ESX thick's days are numbered me believes, or perhaps VMware would like to believe. So they probably don't want to get it out any further ....

/kimono/

[kimono]

This article supports that theory:

http://reddevnews.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=10067

Senior

Director of Product Marketing Bogomil Balkansky said that the price for

ESX will not be reduced, but that it shouldn't matter to customers,

because ESXi is the future. "We've made it clear that our future

architectural direction is ESXi," Balkansky said, adding that both

products are "completely functionally equivalent." The price of VI,

VMware's suite of infrastructure products, will not change, he said.

/kimono/

[MattG]

It's about time! I thought that this would have been one of the big announcements at VMWorld.

Now we don't need to hear the stupid "but Hyper-V is free" argument anymore.

Hopefully Admins and businesses new to virtualization wont buy into the MS "buy Hyper-V because we will support our apps on it" FUD.

-MattG

[admin]

So guys,

How long do you think it will take for shops to make the switch from ESX w/SC to ESXi? It's been argued that shops will be using ESX w/SC for many years to come...and will not be interested in switching over to ESXi.

This might be an interesting poll to take on the forums.

Chris

[steven_catania]

Our Company is heavily in ESX 3.5. What would be the benefits of moving to ESXi at the next refresh?

Curious.

[lamw]

I agree, I've heard both arguments that consoless ESX will be in the next release and that the current 3.5 will be phased out soon, but based on what virtualization.info has posted:

The ESX version that includes the Console Operating System (COS) will

not be faded out (at least in the short timeframe). Most VMware

customers are currently using that version and the company will support

them for a long time.

What's considered a short timeframe? Few months, 1yr?

Would be interesting to see what may get announced at VMworld 08 but it sounds like COS will be phased out but it probably will take a while.

[NYSDHCR]

In this link: "Because all three VI3 editions already include a license for the ESX or ESXi hypervisors, it would appear that dropping the license fee for ESXi should have no measurable impact on most VMware customers, which overwhelmingly deploy ESX and ESXi along with VMware Infrastructure software."

Another interesting part: "VMware's cloudy forecast

On the earnings call, Maritz also alluded to future VMware news. In addition to continued investment in VMware Infrastructure, version 4 of which will be released in 2009, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), "now, we also have the opportunity to extend usage of our technology toward the cloud," he said. "

[dpomeroy]

We had already started the process of transitioning new hosts to 3i for the main reasons of ease of deployment/management, better security, and fits better with our overall data center strategy.

Don Pomeroy

VMware Communities User Moderator

[JDLangdon]

Virtualization.info is reporting that VMware announced during their financial update today that ESXi would be available for free starting next week with no requirement to purchase support. More details here -

I must be missing something here because I thought VMware software was free and that you only purchased licenses and support.

Jason

[lamw]

Nope, Hypervisor did have an associated cost aka License, if you've purchased some, you'll know there's an license associated with ESX, it usally comes within a bundle with your Enterprise License / VC so it may seem that Hypervisor itself is free ... but to really be able to use it, you'll need the License, which is the cost of ESX. ESXi will be free starting next week, least from what VMware has stated but the price of ESX 3.5 (w/SC) will still have a fee associated with the ESX License. Again, techincally ESX is free .... without the License you can't really do much with it ... maybe 60day eval at the most and a pretty GUI

[JDLangdon]

Nope, Hypervisor did have an associated cost aka License, if you've purchased some, you'll know there's an license associated with ESX, it usally comes within a bundle with your Enterprise License / VC so it may seem that Hypervisor itself is free ... but to really be able to use it, you'll need the License, which is the cost of ESX. ESXi will be free starting next week, least from what VMware has stated but the price of ESX 3.5 (w/SC) will still have a fee associated with the ESX License. Again, techincally ESX is free .... without the License you can't really do much with it ... maybe 60day eval at the most and a pretty GUI

Sounds like this is where I misunderstood. I always assumed that the hypervisor was free and that the $3200 was for VI3 licenses and support.

Anyone know exactly what the ESX 3.5 hypervisor costs?