Link: InfoWorld: Product Guide: VMware Infrastructure 3 with ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 : Review.
In the year or so
since VMware released VMware Infrastructure 3.0 (VI3), it has come to
be viewed as a watershed event in virtualization. Building upon the
reliability of the VMware ESX 2.5 hypervisor, VI3 and its sophisticated
VM management tools brought virtualization firmly into the IT
mainstream. The recent upgrade to ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5
doesn’t equal the leap to VI3 (see my review, "Deep dive into VMware’s virtual infrastructure"), but it does add a few features that will definitely come in handy for any virtualization implementation.These
features are generally focused on easing the maintenance burden imposed
by a virtualized infrastructure. Virtualization promises to make server
management intrinsically simpler, but as with many things in IT, it
doesn’t hit every target. Addressing some important pain points, VMware
has added features such as patch management (Update Manager), live
migration of VM disks (Storage VMotion), and a capacity planning wizard
(Guided Consolidation) to the suite. Each of these new features fills a
gap in the overall picture, and for the most part, does so quite well. …
Overall, VMware’s
ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 release represents a logical next step, a
necessary evolution of the flagship product. It brings some significant
features to the table, and the nature of the VI3 licensing model
coupled with the ease of upgrading will lure most users to upgrade
quickly. …VMware
certainly has the most mature, stable, and expensive x86 virtualization
product the world has ever seen. But there’s lots more to be done, and
many more bridges to be crossed. This is still just the very beginning.
