MrGroove’s Blog

Well,  it’s about time!  VMWare has finally released a free alternative to the Free Microsoft Hyper-V product.  ESXi as VMWare is calling their latest Virtual Server product has just a 32MB disk footprint and operates directly on the HW layer.   Granted, you don’t get all the fancy, groovy Management Tools (VMotion, HA etc….) however from the documentation, it’s looks fairly complete AND….  Although I’ve not TESTED it yet, superior to Microsoft’s Hyper-V product. 

Plenty of info can be found on the VMWare ESXi Product page.  From the quick glance, here are a few items to note:

• ESXi has better Linux support than Hyper-V out of the box
  • 32 or 64bit
  • Ubuntu
  • LInux
  • Solaris 10
  • Vista
  • etc…
• ESXi like ESX allows for RAM over-commitment.  Big plus over Hyper-V.
• TRUELY FREE!  OS Independence!  No need for HOST OS license (Server 2008….) This truly IS a free HyperVisor.
• ESXi has a lot of great features - CPU, Network, IO, etc…

I’ll be giving it a try here in the next few days.  hopefully I can install it on one of my new Desktops.  The supported Servers listed on the site is limited but…. well see.

FYI - here’s a few more link:

Download Link - get a free copy of VMware ESXi

VMWare ESXi Vs. Hyper V - http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/facts.html

VMWare ESXi Data Sheet - VMware ESXi Data Sheet

Tags: vmware esxi, virtualization, hyper-v, freeware