VMware announces free ESX - or: The gorilla effect?

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VMware announces free ESX - or: The gorilla effect?

Wednesday, July 23. 2008

VMware announced a free version of their ESX server product. Well, this may be an effect of the 500 pound gorillas entering the business. Sun will announce xVM soon, Microsofts developed Hyper-V ... thus the market for it´s hypervisor may get narrow. At the end, the auxillary tools earn VMwares money, thus giving away the hypervisor is a clever move.

Posted by Joerg Moellenkamp in English, The IT Business at 07:28 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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And not a single SUN Server is certified for ESXi (installable/embedded)

#1 Mario on 2008-07-23 10:41 (Reply)

That´s really unfortunate....

#2 Joerg+M. (Homepage) on 2008-07-23 11:23 (Reply)

ESXi seems to be dependent on the storage subsystem of the server whereas regular ESX it does not matter. I installed ESXi on some Dell servers and noticed that the hypervisor was able to communicate with the IPMI / BMC for environmental information and was able to pull raid controller information from the server. ESXi Was also aware of the exact model of server and its service tag during the install. While this is a "cute" feature it should not be a limiting factor for the product.

It is possible that VMware is trying to not "cheapen" their product by allowing it to be installed on desktop grade hardware. One nasty catch though is the License seems to be limited to 2 CPU's.

ESXi seems to be more of a "gateway drug" for customers to get a sample of how much more usable ESX is over standard VMware Server. Your first hit of ESX crack is free and then your hooked. When you start hitting the 2 CPU barrier many shops will cave and throw cash at VMware.

Sun has the same approach with their x86 line of products. Once you deal with Sun Service vs IBM HP or Dell you suddenly want to fill your data center full of their equipment.

#3 rchase (Homepage) on 2008-07-30 14:23 (Reply)

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