Talk:VMware ESXi

Type microkernelized of monolithic

Xen and Hyper-V are microkernelized hypervisors, that means they need to use the device drivers of the Dom0 operating system. KVM is monolithic, it comes with its own device drivers. In the article, it sais, VMware ESX does not need any operating system, and is also sais it is microkernelized hypervisor. Which claim is correct? User:ScotXW^t@lk 17:52, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Great Idea & First Question

I like the idea of a separated page for the ESX Server.

One question: In the first paragraph, there is written 'The basic server requires some form of persistent storage - typically an array of hard disk drives - for storing core system files and virtual machines.' Why is there the emphasis on storage? Also every ESX Server needs CPU, RAM, Network, ...?

--Sophis 08:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The intent here was to explain the main difference between ESX 3.0 and 3i in the first pargraph. As I understand it, 3.0 needs to be installed on a persistent storage medium, like a hard disk array, whereas 3i will be integrated into the system's firmware. I just reworded it slightly to better emphasize this difference. If you can make this any clearer, then please do so. — EagleOne\^Talk 02:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at clarifying the point Sophis was aiming at. The three IBM servers we have use a usb storage token with ESXi preinstalled. Not exactly firmware but close. ---TheDrew (talk) 03:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Network Protocol Section

Just an FYI - This section should probably be removed or at least moved to either the Workstation or VMware Server page since it is not related to ESX. The terms Bridged and NAT'd are not applicable to the ESX architecture. I am sure the original author was using one of the HOSTED (Workstation or Server) products which does employ these types of concepts/terms for the host NICs. I'll leave this task for one of the more experienced WIKIPeople to handle though. 68.164.207.118 (talk) 05:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC) CCOSTAN

List of guest OSes supported

No list of supported guest OSes in the industry-leading hypervisor article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.128.181.104 (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The current descriptions of Supported Guest OS variants can be found in HTML at http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/ and in PDF at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf (revised concurrently). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Virtualjmills (talk • contribs) 23:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Current list has moved. New location http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.23.85.168 (talk) 05:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Architecture

Because there is so little information available about how ESX server differs from Linux+GSX server, I may be getting some things wrong here. It seems to me that even in V3, the linux kernel loads first, provides the proc FS and a base for what the article refers to as the service OS (redhat linux userpsace), and is also used for its network and storage drivers. Unless I am mistaken, this makes Linux the actual bare hardware kernel.

Without some serious modification there are only 2 places for code to run on a linux system, in userspace or in the kernel itself. That includes the drivers, which, because they are GPL licensed, virally GPL anything you attach them to. Unless VMware has massively modified the linux kernel, this vmkernel either runs in userspace or is itself a module and thus derivative of the Linux kernel.

The whole thing looks like a license violation to me, and I'm not even that fond of the GPL. I hope someone proves me wrong. Mrsteveman1 (talk) 05:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The 'Serious Modification' takes the form of passing arguments to the kernel telling it to use only a limited set of hardware (only one CPU, small amount of memory etc, in early versions this was done explicitly in lilo arguments now I believe it is embedded in the initrd). Then a proprietory kernel module "taints" the kernel (which is allowed but discouraged). That module bootstraps the vmkernel which runs on the rest of the hardware and provides the hypervisor. There is no "clear GPL violation" even if the methods are not quite as 'open' as one would want. The relevant Open Source code can all be downloaded from here. http://www.vmware.com/download/open_source.html

15.195.185.225 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Actually there is a version of ESX available that does not uses the Linux kernel (called 3.5i). So your reasoning is false. There is some documentation available at e.g. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&safe=off&q=esx+vmware&spell=1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.202.117.76 (talk) 02:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

ESXi (Up as far as the current version 5, still depends on a Linux kernel to boot. The change between ESX and ESXi Was that ESXi had a significantly reduced linux Userland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.23.85.168 (talk) 05:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal

VMware ESX Server(Whitebox HCL) doesn't have enough useful content that stands on its own; it should be merged here.--Oneiros (talk) 21:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Should that page even exist at all? not really a wikipedia class of material, more like tomshardware or vmware's FAQ.--Nonya 13:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.196.43.198 (talk)

No. It has been deleted.--Oneiros (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

How come thre isn't anything that says what kind of hardware you need to run it on??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.83.176.4 (talk) 20:31, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The neutrality warning should be pulled.

The "neutral point of view" warning should be removed. It is referencing the limitation section; apparently there is some confusion between academic discussions (where 'limitations' might be a prejorative notion) and technical ones (where it simply discusses the rated capability of a system in quantitative terms).

It is in no-way controversial to state that an ESX guest can only have 255GB of RAM, for instance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cseraphine (talk • contribs) 19:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm going to pull it. -TheDrew (talk) 13:11, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

VMware ESXi

"VMware ESXi is server virtualization software written by VMware. It can be either free (limited features) or full-featured."
I don't agree with this since VMware ESXi seems to be free of charge. The non-free version is called VMware vSphere.
Chrescht (talk) 14:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. In reality, there is no difference between the free ESXi and one that has one of the various licenses applied to it (i.e. Foundation, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus). The differences are seen with the various features that vCenter Server brings (HA, DRS, vShield Zones, Distributed vSwitch, etc.) and ESXi's participation in those features. In other words, the hypervisor is the same regardless of the version and includes all the ESX features like over-committing of memory, shared memory pages, balloon driver, vSMP, etc. By applying a license, you do not gain anything from the standpoint of the ESXi host but it simply allows that host to be managed by vCenter and participate in a vCenter server cluster or participate in VMotion or SVMotion. There may only one area that is host related that may be different and that is in regards to RCLI or Remote Command Line Scripting in that the API is read only requiring all management to go through the vSphere Client. I have not verified that that is in fact true but did read some who were unable to run esx-cfg or vi-cfg commands to set various values.

I'm not sure how to re-word the description but something like VMware ESXi is a bare metal server virtualization software hypervisor by VMware. It can be used as a stand alone server or as part of a vCenter managed host. VMware offers ESXi as a free download or one of the VMware licenses can be applied to ESXi to allow it to be managed via vCenter and participate in any licensed vCenter features. Its principle difference between non-free VMware vSphere ESX Server is that ESX Server boots a modified and stripped down Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS that acts as an interface or "Console" that then launches the vmkernel hypervisor. ESXi boots the vmkernel directly and the interface into the vmkernel (bootstrap, keyboard, video, shell, etc.) is handled via the embedded BusyBox Linux

I know that VMware is changed its name to vSphere but ESX is still used.

Deandownsouth (talk) 20:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

ESX acronym

ESX stands for Elastic Sky X (GSX, the older product, stands for Ground Storm X).. For the purpose of completion, should we include this piece of information? Numerous sources online mention this fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.162.148.199 (talk) 06:03, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, its generally good writing to have an explanation of an acronym when one introduces it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.121.161 (talk) 10:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Would be great info if you had a notable reference for it. Do you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.22.41.50 (talk) 09:33, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Seperate ESX & ESXi?

It is worth separating ESX and ESXi or maybe moving this to EXSi. With Vmware ditching ESX in favour of ESXi it seems odd to update the ESXi section of this article when the product under the main title is defunct. --JetBlast (talk) 22:56, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Since ESXi is an evolved, renamed version of ESX, I think we should move the article to VMware ESXi, and let VMware ESX redirect there. –Ringbang (talk) 22:05, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Release History

What justification is there for listing every point release? --SimonBramfitt (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Because VMware's site doesn't have it in one place. It's actually the only reason I head to this wiki page (on a fairly regular basis). --169.233.216.189 (talk) 22:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)Anon vSphere IT user

I disagree that it should be here, however. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I'd support an external link to a third-party listing of this information, but I believe it isn't encyclopedic and detracts from the article. —me_and 11:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Where is the licensing information for this release. Is it Open Source? Is this simply VMware promotion blurb?

Where is the licensing information for this release. Is it Open Source? Is this simply VMware promotion blurb? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.78.128 (talk) 10:57, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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The lawsuit

The lawsuit mentioned in the article seems to have concluded on Feb 28 2019. I found only some short articles + the VMWare's statement here https://www.vmware.com/company/news/updates/march-2019-hellwig-legal-proceedings.html - and I don't want to edit the article based on only this but maybe someone can start here and find a court's ruling? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.162.8.158 (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2019 (UTC)