ESXi 3.5

VMware Update 3 is out! Vizioncore will be releasing VRanger support for ESXi 3.5 soon!

Hi folks, VMware Update 3 is now out and it addresses quite a few outstanding issues. You can read about the resolved issues in the release notes here. With VMware Update 3 out now once again you should pay heed to proper patch procedures as I always recommend. Please apply the patch in a test lab environment and watch how it affects things.

After you have spent the time patching and testing in the lab you will eventually have an opportunity to deploy this to your production environment. Don’t deploy it to every single server, just deploy it to one ESX host, see how thtat goes and then start to deploying it to other ESX hosts. This way you have something to fail back to if something goes wrong. You can download the update here.

In other news, Vizioncore will be releasing a version of VRanger that supports backing up of virtual machines in ESXi 3.5 in the first quarter of 2009! This  is great news as currently there isn’t an easy way to do this. Right now the easiest way to back up an entire virtual machine while it’s running live is to be running the paid for versions of VMware as opposed to the free ESXi 3.5. With the release of VRanger for ESXi 3.5 next year this is going to make ESXi 3.5 an even more appealing solution to the budget concious IT administrator looking to dip their toe into the waters of virtualization.

-RP

Citrix XenServer also Available for Free

Amongst all the hype about Hyper-V and VMWare’s ESXi 3.5, I think a lot of people tend to forget about the other offerings out there. Hyper-V is essentially free, available for a very low cost if you buy the Windows 2008 version with it on it. Frankly, I don’t know why you would buy the version without it. I certainly can’t think of a good reason. Also VMWare ESXi 3.5 is free now due to the recent announcement from VMWare. Based on this, it’s quick to get caught up in the virtualization fun since you can acquire either product quite readily.

 However, there is another alternative. You can try out Citrix XenServer Express Edition from Citrix. This is due to the latest acquisition by Citrix. The Express Edition version allows you to run 4 virtual machines for free. You can get it at this link here.

 -RP

Bare Metal Hypervisors

With Hyper-V out now, the virtualization marketing machine from all the different virtualization companies is in full swing. The battle is on and it looks like it’s going to be an ugly one. With virtualization pros on either side spouting the virtues of their product and claiming why one is better than the other.

Within the past few days I have read about a ton of cost comparisons between all the different offerings out there between Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMWare. I think at the end of the day, you need to delve a little deeper and look at the differences between the technologies that make up these products and what they mean to you and your business.

 One of the core differences that is important to me (and might not be important to you, depending on your needs) is the level/classification of hypervisor that is employed by the various companies. VMWare and Citrix both offer what are called level 1 or type 1 classification hypervisors. These are hypervisors that install on bare metal without an underlying OS. Whereas Microsoft offers Hyper-V only installed as a role on Windows 2008. This is what is called a level 2 hypervisor or type 2 classification hypervisor.

This is important because anytime you have a virtual product using a level 2 hypervisor, the hosting OS gives a larger footprint to attack and can compromise the security or stability of the box more than a level 1 hypervisor would. Now for non mission critical servers this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for mission critical virtual machines this could be the difference between choosing which virtualization product is right for you.

However, it is said that Microsoft will be developing a level 1 hypervisor. We will have to wait and see how this progresses, because once this comes out, the lines will be even further blurred between the different competitors.

-RP

VMWare’s ESXi vs Hyper-V, the details on what free really means

I was speaking to a co-worker today and he pointed me towards Mike’s blog at http://mikedatl.typepad.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/07/esx-35i-for-fre.html. After reading through it, it was obvious he had made some really great points.

 Microsoft has offered Hyper-V for free essentially with Windows 2008 but it doesn’t include the cost of Windows 2008 itself. ESXi on the other hand is a bare metal Hyper-visor which requires no OS for it’s installation and requires no purchase of Hyper-V.

 Also, in my humble opinion, once you grow out of the SMB market and start moving up, the features of VMWare trounce what Microsoft has to offer with Hyper-V. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Microsoft will continue to develop their offering and play catch up, but VMWare is there right now at what I find a very reasonable price.

 -RP

VMWare to offer ESXi for Free

Hi folks, if you haven’t already heard the exciting news, VMWare is going to be offering their ESXi product for free starting July 28th! This is obviously being done to compete with Microsoft’s Hyper-V. This is great news in my opinion as it will really foster great competition between the two products and can only result in both companies putting out better products for the consumer in the long run. You can read more about it here in eWeek’s article.

 One of the questions I’ve received is what is ESXi 3.5 and how does it differ from VMWare’s other product ESX 3.5? The major difference is that ESXi 3.5 has a small footprint of only 32MB and it doesn’t have a service console like ESX 3.5 has. This means that a lot of agents (like backup agents) that rely on the service console to run will not work with ESXi 3.5. However as the product matures we will see more and more support for it. In the meantime you can still run backups as you normally would on a physical server. 

 Here is a link to a knowledge base article at VMWare that also explains some of the features that are not present in ESXi 3.5.

-RP