VMware ESXi

Alternate Names: 
ESX
4.7
23 postings by real users.

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Expert Review

Greg Schulz's picture
Owner
tech consulting firm
1-500 employees

Expert Review

ctsanders's picture
Partner
tech services company
1-500 employees

Disclosure: My company is a VMware reseller.
What I have found is as follows:
VMware:
- Easier to setup, established product, works with most OSs
- Is owned by EMC (1 storage vendor) and has plenty of development resources

Reviews and Comments

5
May 17 2013 8:03am
Fast, manageable, and secure. But no web interface without vCenter!
Pros:
Fast
Manageable
Secure
Low overhead
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4 Comment(s)
henry's picture
henry Did you running into any issue with VACI on NetApp filer while running hardware based... more
Armin Lavaee's picture
Armin Lavaee Hi Sorry but i don't have NetApp in my infrastracture. we use Hp SAN and EMC
henry's picture
henry Thanks Armin for your kindly update.
Armin Lavaee's picture
Armin Lavaee if you need anything i glad to help.
5
May 05 2013 8:04am
This server class product is very stable, but expensive.
Pros:
This server class product is very stable, I have been using it for more than 7 years, previous versions were named different with less bugs. No downtime.
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1 Comment(s)
ctsanders's picture
ctsanders I think initially the software (based on what you buy) could be expensive; however,... more
5
Apr 24 2013 11:26pm
VMware ESXi rocks!
Pros:
Brilliant hyper-visor with proven virtualization stack.
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5
Mar 12 2013 5:07pm
The best product of VMware.
Pros:
Easy to use and manage.
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5
Dec 31 2012 2:49am
The best product for critical server virtual infrastructure.
Pros:
Great product for critical production server virtual infrastructure. No any "gamers" in this area. Latest product can help more than previous. VMware Replication, vSphere Data Protection based on AVAMAR technology, new vCPU architecture and more new features says us that it is the one...
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2 Comment(s)
Alin Radu's picture
Alin Radu Another advantage is that VMware ESXi Server uses RCLI (Remote Command Line Interface)... more
kleegeek's picture
kleegeek I agree that the SSO component of the vSphere 5.1 upgrade is a chore to install. VMware... more
4
Dec 21 2012 4:04pm
Fast and Reliable Virtualization Solution
Pros:
It is one easy to install and manage vitualization technique. Its pretty fast also, compared to some other vitualization techniques. And that is because its has a very small amout of resource overhead. It lacks the server console which decreases its booting time.
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5
Nov 21 2012 5:55am
Highly usable but cannot be managed from Linux.
Pros:
Most usable hypervisor in the industry. It's well documented, really simple and quick to setup.
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3 Comment(s)
Trevor Roberts Jr's picture
Trevor Roberts Jr Hello lasso. I agree that the client being Windows-only being annoying since I'm a... more
kleegeek's picture
kleegeek Agreed. Management of vSphere 4.X was a bit of a challenge. However, in these cases I... more
anon1163's picture
anon1163 Hello Iasso, Your statements doesnt apply to vSphere 5.x, where VMware introduced vCenter... more
4
Jul 11 2012 5:32pm
Free Hypervisor from VMWare
Pros:
ESXi has one major benefit that outweighs the others; IT'S FREE!

Yes, it has plenty of other benefits, like running a wide variety of different virtual operating systems in virtual machines (it supports every platform but OS X, and that can technically still be "hacked" onto it...
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1 Comment(s)
technolo5700's picture
technolo5700 Great hypervisor with a lot of power. Very scalable from running just a single VM or... more
5
Jul 06 2012 8:49am
Vmware ESXi - innovation, changing the old traditional ways
Pros:
1) Easier way of segmenting the resources.
2) Host profiles - Template to build hosts in minutes.
3) Performance and Graphs - Easy to monitor the hosts
4) Vmotion - In essence, this technique helps you to move a live server between hosts without any downtime.
5) Robust Management Tools
6)...
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4
Jun 29 2012 9:33am
Easy to install and configure, but lacks central management
Pros:
- Free
- Easy to install and configure
- Very low overhead
- Great management features
- Enterprise Ready
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This review is based on my own experience. I am not an employee of this vendor or one of its direct competitors. This review complies with the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.

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Related Reviews

5
Apr 20 2013 1:50am
The Best Desktop Virtualization Tool
Pros:
It was in March 2010, when I first experienced VMware Workstation when my superior asked me to setup a LAMP server in my desktop computer. At first I was hesitant but I started to love it because of the following reasons: • It is very easy to use and no complications in installation • It runs...
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Jan 30 2013 2:58pm
Note:
With respect to some of the cons, Proxmox VE performs well enough with Windows if you use KVM's virtio devices in lieu of emulated hardware. However, the freely available virtio drivers are not WHQL-certified, which produces annoying error messages when you attempt to load them. With...
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5
Jan 07 2013 6:58am
Simple install open source, but poor support for USB and OSx
Pros:
· Bear metal simple install · Runs on many different form factors- requires minimal hardware but take advantage of super-computer. From a tiny media servers to huge enterprise machines. · No CPU or memory restrictions · Many media options – local, iscsi, NFS,...
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4
Jan 08 2013 6:07am
Our current virtualization standar platform, but Hyper-V 2012 version functionality appears to gain on VMware vSphere
Pros:
Key business drivers and benefits for us: • Co-location data centers environmental costs are greatly reduced (rack space, power, cooling). • Allows better utilization and flexibility to segment physical resources (vCPU & vMemory) • Consolidate / centralize management of all Windows and Linux...
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5
Dec 31 2012 9:21am
Ease of use, functionality, established product, works very...
Pros:
Disclosure: My company is a VMware reseller. Ease of use, functionality, established product, works very will with almost any prime time OS, very thought-out application, works with the developer community to improve, has deep pocket organization like EMC to help propel them into the future
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Jan 14 2013 4:50pm
vSphere Review
Pros:
- Enterprise class solution - Live Migration (both server and storage) - High Availability and Load Balancing - Disaster Recovery - Lots of 3rd party vendor support - Excellent technical support
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1 Comment(s)
henry's picture
henry Cool
Jan 01 2013 10:45am
Note:
Yes. vSphere 5 is better then v4 I was wondering what function you wish to have in vSphere 6? Happy New Year
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1 Comment(s)
ctsanders's picture
ctsanders I think I would like a better integration with SSD/MLC HDD where we see the full power of... more
5
Feb 22 2013 6:56pm
VMware's vSphere is THE industry leading virtualization platform - today
Pros:
- Increase the flexibility and agility of the infrastructure to move at the speed of business by decoupling the server from the hardware - Server consolidation has driven the virtualization industry shift, and vSphere leads the charge. - Virtualization overhead is the smallest of any hypervisor...
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4
Jan 03 2013 11:26am
An excellent product with proven track record. Plan properly the deployment and use as this products is expensive.
Pros:
VMware vSphere is a proven product with an established track record. We bought it as part of our server system upgrade project to accommodate our new student management system from Oracle. At first, we had a taste of vSphere as part of a demonstration system. We got to play around with it and...
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5
Jan 04 2013 9:22am
* User friendly and not complex. * Easy to...
Pros:
* User friendly and not complex. * Easy to deploy, manage and troubleshoot. * Scalability and stability. * Highly recommended for mission critical applications and databases. * Aggressive in educating their clients.* User friendly and not complex. * Easy to deploy, manage and troubleshoot...
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4
Dec 22 2012 10:04am
Despite its minor issues, it's still the choice of most of the System Admins.
Pros:
It is os-independent having a very thin architecture with which it can offer unparalleled security and reliability. Unlike most other hypervisors in the market, this don't need a general purpose operating system clearing the hazards of processor overhead, Antivirus and other OS processor...
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Microsoft
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5
Jun 28 2012 4:49am
Reduce the DataCenter overhead cost with Hyper-V
Pros:
• The ROI on Hyper-V is enormous. It is cheaper than any other enterprises visualization tool. • Hyper-V Replica can replace SAN, especially where SAN might be overloaded. • It is dynamic and scalable.
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Microsoft
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4
Aug 27 2012 3:57pm
Great hypervisor with snapshot capability and failover, but it has limitations.
Pros:
Great Hypervisor with snapshot capability, and fail over clustering integration. Also possible to manage with Virtual Machine Manager.
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Microsoft
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4
Jul 03 2012 2:03am
An easy and scalable solution for your enterprise virtualization needs
Pros:
Pros of Hyper-V are- 1) Dynamic memory allocation for the virtual machines by efficient usage real time memory distribution architecture 2) More number of virtual machines per Hyper-V host through VDI technology 3) One of the best features in Hyper V is of live migration of running virtual...
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Microsoft
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5
Jan 22 2013 9:04am
Hyper-V 2012 - Well done Microsoft!
Pros:
The best hypervisor in the market! From Server 2008 to Server 2012 Hyper-v technology has evolved rapidly. As more organisations are using virtualisation, key features like VM replication, Virtual SAN Manager and Live migrations - enable organisations to design fail over and backup solutions...
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Microsoft
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5
Jul 04 2012 1:38pm
Hyper-V is a solution for virtual machines with better scalability, better dynamic memory management, and excellent virtual storage management.
Pros:
The proven technological prowess of Microsoft has produced yet another wonder for virtual machines - Hyper-V. The Windows Server 2008 R2 Hypervisor, is indeed a step towards the virtual world. Gone are those days where you start to scratch your head for low disk space and complicated hardware and...
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Microsoft
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4
Feb 18 2013 10:44pm
Windows 2012 Hyper V: Huge Improvements
Pros:
Scalability Improvements: Support for up to 4TB physical memory, up to 320 Logical Processors, up to 64 nodes cluster which can support 8000 VM's Migrations: Supports many types of migration scenarios such as live migration, live storage migration limited by only hardware capability....
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Microsoft
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5
Jul 11 2012 3:38pm
Microsoft has a winner with Hyper-V!
Pros:
Hyper-V definitely has its pro's, some of which are painfully apparent. - The first one is that it is a Microsoft product, which is baked into its Server 2008 and 2008 R2 platforms. You also have the option of a Hyper-V server core, which is only the Hypervisor (this allows for more...
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4
Apr 18 2013 3:34am
Formerly the Leading First Generation, Free of Charge Virtualization Server of VMware
Pros:
• VMware server is a free hosted virtualization server which runs on top of various operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, Windows and Netware • It separates single physical server into various virtual machines which can be deployed many times • The installation of the server no longer...
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5
Jun 26 2012 6:12pm
Free and competitive Desktop Visualization tool
Pros:
1. OracleVm Virtual box is free. 2. It is relatively fast, with an enjoyable performance. 3. It also allows you to connect to a virtual machine through the Remote Desktop Protocol.
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5
Jul 23 2012 9:03am
XenServer revolutionized my enterprise to where there is no downtime. Sometimes specific configurations can be difficult.
Pros:
XenServer is my favorite virtualization product. After previewing Vmware, Xen, and Hyper-V, I found this to be the easiest. You don't have to know linux to use. I like that XenServer can import virtual machines from any of the other hypervisors. I use scheduled snapshots and archiving, to...
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4
Jul 11 2012 5:44pm
Awesome Virtualization Software developed by Sun Microsystems
Pros:
OracleVM is an excellent alternative to Virtual PC and other client-side virtualization tools. It's mostly open source, and supplies the ability to run virtualized OS's from a lightweight and incredibly user friendly environment. It provides comparable features to other solutions...
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3
Jul 10 2012 7:06pm
RHEV Hypervisor is the best Virtualization product
Pros:
RHEV costs are very low compared to other Virtualization products. RHEV hypervisor supports up to 160 cores and up to 2 TB of RAM on a host machine. Performance and security are key advantages of RHEV. One of the new features are transparent huge pages, where kernel dynamically creates large memory...
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3
Aug 07 2012 5:23am
Old, almost dead, but still great software to play with, but not for your production environment
Pros:
Unlike VMware workstation where we have to log in to desktop to run VM(s), with VMware Server we can run VM on the background. It also have a web based management interface so you don't have to install a software on your desktop to manage VMware server. It’s still quite useful virtualization...
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3
Jun 27 2012 11:33am
XenServer Free Virtualization Platform is one of the most full-featured free hypervisors available.
Pros:
XenServer Free Virtualization Platform is one of the most full-featured free systems available. It's main advantage over the free VMware ESXi hypervisor is that the management applications is Windows-based and free for download. This for me is the main reason why we have adopted it and in...
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4
Jun 27 2012 2:32pm
Oracle VM Server for x86 is an enterprise-proven, server virtualization solution for both Oracle and non-Oracle workloads, that makes enterprise applications easier to deploy, manage, and support.
Pros:
Pros: •It provides enhancements for network and storage configuration, policy-based management for delivering application resource flexibility, and a GUI. •Distributed Resource Scheduling for capacity management, providing real time monitoring enabling re-balancing of a server pool. •...
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2 Comment(s)
imran_sh's picture
imran_sh Reading lot of documents and performing experiments can't be considered as a... more
cdecide's picture
cdecide These Pros isn't true, i mean Oracle VM's Pros should be compared to Other... more
4
Aug 07 2012 3:37am
Full virtualization solution that you can start with almost zero cost
Pros:
XenServer have four different editions: Free, Advanced, Enterprise, Platinum. You can ask for free license at no cost but you have to renew it each year. The free edition lacks some features that are only available on the other three editions. We can easily access XenServer from XenCenter; we can...
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5
Aug 04 2012 3:28am
Oracle VM is an extremely feature rich, high performance product, which provides an environment to leverage the benefits of virtualization technology.
Pros:
1) It allows deploying operating systems and the application software’s within supported platforms and environments. 2) It includes VM Server which is designed to provide a secure, lightweight, server based platform to run and execute virtual machines. And also includes VM Manager which manages...
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1 Comment(s)
imran_sh's picture
imran_sh Oracle VM runs well with Oracle SAN, but do the third party vendors like EMC SAN also... more
3
Jul 02 2012 4:14pm
VMware Server is the best available virtualization solution with live migration, high availability, and dynamic resources
Pros:
Pros on the VMware Server are- 1) Centralized management and configuration 2) Remote management and headless operation available 3) VMotion feature helps in real time movement of virtual machines from one server to the other 4) Automated scanning and patching of hosts 5) VSphere DRS for...
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4
Aug 27 2012 9:06am
DR/BCP friendly, but hard to justify annual maintenance vs. HyperV
Pros:
Greatly consolidated my server infrastructure; DR/BCP friendly
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3
Jul 06 2012 12:51pm
Xenserver - Opensource virtualization platform, definitely worth testing and exploring!
Pros:
The free software includes the advanced features, like migration of virtual machines from one host to another without interrupting the services, and active directory integration. Xen hypervisor is open source. Xen hypervisor is installed on bare metal and provides high performance. Real time...
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5
Jun 29 2012 12:33am
Free, Amazing and Powerful, Cross-platform Virtualization Software
Pros:
1. It is a free software 2. Performance is at a very good level 3. If there is a problem it can be fixed easily because it has a good community website.
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1 Comment(s)
imran_sh's picture
imran_sh Oracle VM is open source and free to use. But if you want support, you need to pay. Only... more
5
Nov 06 2012 3:28pm
Highly recommended virtualization software to manage virtual guests
Pros:
Xen is an open source virtualization server widely used in IT. It provides simple and robust commands to manage Xen environment for managing virtual hosts.Backup and recovery of virtual hosts are simple. It can be managed remotely with XenCenter. It supports all client OS like windows, linux etc.
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1 Comment(s)
imran_sh's picture
imran_sh VMWare has comparatively broad virtualization support than Xen-based environment. So... more
4
Jan 22 2013 6:22am
Beware using it with Web Services APIs
Pros:
Oracle VM is open source so it is free and readily available for downloading. It saves a lot of money instead of purchasing multiple servers, and can allow you to load more than one operating system at a time. Use of Oracle VM and installation is quite simple. It has high security and works well...
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4
Jul 11 2012 4:00pm
Excellent tool for its time, but there are better solutions now.
Pros:
VMWare server is an excellent virtualzation tool for the workstation. It could be used as a limited functionality version of VMWare Workstation or as a host for your virtual machines, with all of the bells and whistles that came with Workstation, such as: - Centralized Management of Virtual...
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4
Nov 15 2012 3:47am
VMware Server: Still one of the best virtualization tool
Pros:
VMware Server is a free, easy-to-use Windows and Linux application that provides a superior introductory experience to server virtualization for businesses to optimize utilization of their technology assets. Below mentioned standout features explains why VMware is so popular among all...
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5
Dec 22 2012 11:12am
Used to be a very good product but now is being replaced by some other of its types.
Pros:
Easy to use and provides centralized management. With that, it is free and provides a very simple and easy web and also remote interface to interact with the product.
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4
Jul 12 2012 12:18am
Highly recommended for virtualization, as it deals effectively with data backup, data recovery, and data storage.
Pros:
• Simple and highly optimized performance • Distinctive storage integration characteristic, through which the administrator directly leverages characteristics of industry’s most important arrays. • XenServer backup and recovery pursues an agent based strategy. Using this, the client can gain an...
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4
Jul 04 2012 3:30pm
Oracle VM is a solution for virtual servers and machines. This software is freely available in the market.
Pros:
Oracle VM Virtual Box is an open source virtualisation software which is recommended wherever budget is a issue. The software is worth using. You can virtually run different OS on a physical platform. You can run Linux on a windows system virtually or otherwise. There is an easy set up procedure...
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3
Jan 15 2013 10:36pm
Inexpensive, but hard to maintain
Pros:
Much cheaper than other major Hypervisors (VMware, Hyper-V). Easy to install and use at the beginning.
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4
Jul 03 2012 2:41am
One of the best open source virtualization techniques with enhanced security, performance, and cost advantage
Pros:
Few pros of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor are- 1) Kernel based virtual machine(KVM) virtualization technology 2) Good application compatibility and interface 3) Memory page sharing 4) NIC bonding 5) Multipath I/O 6) Efficient guest consolidation, live migration and HA 7)...
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5
Jul 12 2012 12:16am
VMware contributes a lot to virtualization with its better security and load management techniques.
Pros:
• VMware Server is problem solving and cost saving. • No need to buy hardware for every server required, just purchase one server and run multiple virtual machines on that single hardware. • Offers testing solutions, provisioning solutions, and makes testing and rolling out installation easier...
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VMware ESXi.