VMware VP Steve Herrod on why our announcements about OEM shipments of ESX Server 3i are important. Link: VMware Everywhere from Virtually There: Steve Herrod’s Blog.
A hardware-centric
philosophyVMware has always believed that virtualization should be
integrated into hardware, always there to enable the computing resources’ full
power and capabilities. This hardware-centric philosophy differs from other
virtualization vendors that think of it as just another feature in a
traditional (and large) operating system. For this critical layer of your
datacenter, you should absolutely expect and receive the rock-solid
reliability, security, and performance that you are used to from hardware.
Expectations of modern operating systems are, shall we say, lower.Size matters
Key to this vision is the new architecture that ESX Server
3i introduces. This architecture provides all the performance and reliability
features of ESX Server in a small, 32MB footprint. This is 1/50th
the size of a typical Windows or Linux OS deployment! ESX Server 3i is the only hypervisor
that does not depend on a large, general purpose operating system to
function. This small footprint reduces
the amount of code that can have bugs in it, streamlines performance, and
minimizes the interfaces and code “surface area” that are the target of
security attacks. It is this new architecture that makes us confident that ESX
Server 3i will be the most reliable, highest performance, and most secure
virtualization platform around.
I had a hard time excerpting, because it’s all good. Read the whole thing.
Jae Ellers is excited, especially for the ease of deployment to remote sites and branch offices. Link: Mister VM: ESX 3i Embedded Availability Imminent.
VMware ESX 3i Embedded will be available from at least 4 major vendors
"real soon now". At least that’s the word on the street. I’ve
definitely heard similar things from my vendor contacts.I’m
very excited about this since it will be great to use in some of our
regional sites. It’s tough to get disparate hardware in and have to
juggle configs around to get on that new hardware remotely. This should
really smooth things out.
Updated:
- Mauricio Freitas thinks we’re on a roll.
- More context and some quotes from Bridget Botelho at SearchServerVirtualization: Link: VMware ESX 3i server shipments imminent, HP, Dell say. Bridget quotes Andrew Kutz as not seeing the technical advantage of flash vs disk, but I think that’s a red herring. Two of the real differentiators are 32MB vs a full OS attached to the hypervisor and the ease of deployment because it’s all preconfigured and part of the hardware you just bought.
