Faize's Posts

JarryG, wouldn't you say that a 32GB RAM limit is less of an issue than not being able to control the hypervisor at all? After all, you can plan around the former, but the latter makes the produc... See more...
JarryG, wouldn't you say that a 32GB RAM limit is less of an issue than not being able to control the hypervisor at all? After all, you can plan around the former, but the latter makes the product essentially unusable. If VMware doesn't want people jumping ship to Xen or Hyper-V, then they at least need to provide a functional product. Otherwise, why provide anything at all? Why not just go back to the pre-Hyper-V days, when there was no competition and ESX was a paid-only product?
Thank you, this is exactly the information I am looking for. To address what I meant regarding sub-par performance with VNC and RDP, they simply can't provide the level of streaming performanc... See more...
Thank you, this is exactly the information I am looking for. To address what I meant regarding sub-par performance with VNC and RDP, they simply can't provide the level of streaming performance that consumer techologies like Miracast, Steam Machines or Nvidia's SHIELD can. VNC and RDP are great for typical office use, but the moment you load a Youtube video, the experience goes from decent to terrible.
I am currently in the process of evaluating different hypervisors to see which one best meets my requirements, and would greatly appreciate any advice on how well ESXi can handle desktop virtuali... See more...
I am currently in the process of evaluating different hypervisors to see which one best meets my requirements, and would greatly appreciate any advice on how well ESXi can handle desktop virtualization scenarios. Does the free edition of ESXi 5.x support the 3D virtual graphics adapter? Or is this feature only available in the paid editions of vSphere? What are some good ways to access a VM intended to serve as a virtual desktop? Will the "Console" tab in vSphere Client work? Or is there some other software that needs to be installed on the client machine? The reason I ask is because Remote Desktop and VNC both provide a sub-par user experience. How good is the virtual desktop experience compared to Microsoft's RemoteFX? Also, how good is it compared to (local) VMs running on Workstation or Fusion? Finally, this isn't directly related to desktop virtualization, but does VMware maintain a list comparing the features available in each edition, including the free edition? There's a list comparing the various paid editions (Compare vSphere Editions for Server & Data Center Virtualization | United States), but I have no clue how these editions stack up against the free edition (or to put it another way, what I won't have access to by going with the free edition instead of the paid editions).
I actually gave up and went with XenServer instead, which has much more extensive hardware compatibility.
Standalone
I've had mixed results when using Converter with (physical) Windows machines. Sometimes, the conversion process will go smoothly, and all that's needed to get the newly-virtualized machine up and... See more...
I've had mixed results when using Converter with (physical) Windows machines. Sometimes, the conversion process will go smoothly, and all that's needed to get the newly-virtualized machine up and running is a couple of reboots and a reactivation. Other times, the guest will BSOD on the first boot, and nothing I do thereafter will make the VM boot. Is there anything in particular I should watch out for when performing the conversion?
Thank you all for the replies. @continuum: I called it a laptop because that's what it actually is, but nowadays it's only used as a VM host. The laptop in question sits a corner of the baseme... See more...
Thank you all for the replies. @continuum: I called it a laptop because that's what it actually is, but nowadays it's only used as a VM host. The laptop in question sits a corner of the basement with the screen closed and runs nothing other than run Windows Server 2003 + VMware Workstation 24/7. Nobody ever physically touches it, and all administration is done through Remote Desktop or SSH to either the host or individual guests. Using vSphere Client would actually be more convenient, since starting VMs currently ties up one of the host's terminal services connections. @Troy Clavell: I didn't know there was a list of unofficially functional hardware, thanks @lowteck: Before I made this post, I installed ESXi to a USB drive on the laptop. There were no problems connecting using vSphere Client and creating a new VM, so I'm fairly certain that at least the basic functionality should work. @FranckRookie: Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but that kb article confused me even more. The Resolution section first says: The  3D acceleration feature is not supported in ESX/ESXi 4.x.  There are  currently no plans to support 3D acceleration in a virtual machine on  ESX/ESXi. Which is fairly clear, but then the next line says: This option is available for virtual machines created in products that support 3D acceleration, such as VMware Workstation. Does this mean that 3D acceleration will continue to work on old VMs which were imported from VMware Workstation, but newly-created ESXi VMs won't have it, or what?
I'm in an unusual situation. I'm a personal/home user with 10+ VMs (active directory domain, mail  server, file server, various web servers, database servers, and test systems - many are Windows,... See more...
I'm in an unusual situation. I'm a personal/home user with 10+ VMs (active directory domain, mail  server, file server, various web servers, database servers, and test systems - many are Windows, some are Linux) running on a single laptop on VMware Workstation. I'm now considering moving everything to the free version of ESXi, but I have several questions: What would be the benefits/drawbacks of moving to the free version of ESXi vs sticking to Workstation? In terms of features, performance, and maintenance time/effort. Does ESXi support 3D graphics acceleration? How does vMotion work? Does the free version of ESXi have vMotion?