One of the thing that will probably most time consuming when migrating to ESXi are the changes in operational procedures that will be required. Of course this fully depends on what type of user you are today. I guess we can qualify the users in three main categories:
vCenter addict
PowerCLI god
Bash guru
For both category 1 and 2 the changes in operational procedures will be kept to a bare minimum but for category 3, the bash guru, the changes will be substantial. This series of articles will take some examples of what you used to do with ESX classic and translate it to ESXi. The main focus here will be vMA and/or the Tech Support Mode console. We will also provide you with some additional examples for scripted installations to show you the possibilities with ESXi are endless, just like with ESX classic.
I want start with pointing everyone to some very valuable resources for ESXi, vMA, vCLI or PowerCLI goodness. I would like to recommend adding these to your rss reader or checking them regularly as it will come in handy at some point, I know I have visited these countless times.
ESXi
VM-Help, owned by Dave Mishchenko who is well known for his ESXi expertise within the community.
VirtuallyGhetto, owned by William Lam. Although some of his articles describe unsupported hacks it does give you a better insight of how ESXi is architected and on top of that he writes very valuable vMA/Perl scripts.
This was part 1 of 10, part 2 will discuss some more examples of things you could configure during a scripted installation as this is more than likely the first thing that will need to change when migrating from ESX classic to ESXi. Most of these are similar to ESX by the way, but I guess they are useful to know about anyway. If there are any specific things you would like to discuss don't hesitate to leave a comment so we can try to address these in one of the articles.
