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ESXi FAQ's
Can I get support for VMware ESXi?
Customers who use the free VMware ESXi product have the following options for support:
- Platinum or Gold support available for purchase
- Per Incident Support available for purchase
- VMware Community Forums
- Support tools
Can I run virtual machines created by Microsoft Virtual Server, Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware Server on VMware ESXi?
Yes. You can use the free VMware Converter to import virtual machines that were created using VMware Server, Microsoft Virtual Server, or Microsoft Virtual PC version 7 or higher. VMware Converter also supports conversions from sources such as physical machines and certain 3rd party disk image formats. View the VMware Converter FAQs for further details.
What tools can I use to manage my free VMware ESXi license?
VMware recommends using VMware Infrastructure Client (VI Client) to manage VMware ESXi. You may also query the VMware ESXi host with RCLI. Note that the free version of VMware ESXi does not allow any configuration changes for the VMware ESXi host through the RCLI. Further, managing a VMware ESXi host with VMware VirtualCenter requires a VMware VirtualCenter Agent for each host, only available with the purchase of a VMware Infrastructure license (Foundation, Standard, or Enterprise).
View more details on the management features of VMware ESXi and VMware ESX.
What is the difference between VMware ESX and VMware ESXi?
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are both bare-metal hypervisors that install directly on the server hardware. Both provide industry-leading performance and scalability; the difference resides in the architecture and the operational management of VMware ESXi. VMware ESX relies on a Linux operating system, called the service console, to perform some management functions: executing scripts and installing third party agents for hardware monitoring, backup or systems management. The service console has been removed from ESXi, reducing the footprint to less than 32MB. By removing the Service Console, VMware ESXi completes an ongoing trend of migrating management functionality from this local command line interface to remote management tools. The functionally of the service console is replaced by remote command line interfaces and adherence to system management standards.
View a detailed comparison of VMware ESX and VMware ESXi management.
How is VMware ESXi different than VMware Infrastructure?
VMware ESXi is a hypervisor that partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines. VMware Infrastructure is the market-leading virtual infrastructure suite for IT organizations looking to virtualize multiple servers in production. VMware Infrastructure offers organizations high availability and management functionality that span across multiple servers to increase availability and productivity. VMware Infrastructure relies on a hypervisor to partition servers. Both VMware ESX and VMware ESXi support the entire suite of VMware Infrastructure products, features and solutions. In fact, you can create resource pools that contain both VMware ESX and VMware ESXi.
How do I use VirtualCenter to manage my ESXi hosts?
To manage an ESXi host with VirtualCenter, you must have a VirtualCenter Agent licensed. VirtualCenter Agent licenses are included in all three of the VMware Infrastructure 3 suites, Foundation, Standard and Enterprise. Thus, your ESXi host must have a Foundation, Standard, or Enterprise license for centralized management with VirtualCenter.
What is the difference between ESXi and VMware Server?
VMware ESXi is an enterprise-class hypervisor that offers a bare-metal architecture for near-native performance, features like memory de-duplication to increase consolidation ratios and a cluster file system for managing VM files on shared storage. VMware ESXi and VMware ESX are the critical foundations for a dynamic and flexible virtual infrastructure.
VMware Server installs as an application on Windows and Linux, relying on an operating system for resource management. This limits the performance and scalability. VMware Server is popular for test and development activities.
Virtual machines created using VMware Server can run on VMware ESXi, but they must first be converted using the free VMware Converter.
Can I buy VMware ESXi preinstalled on servers?
VMware ESXi is the first hardware-integrated hypervisor. Dell, IBM, HP and Fujitsu-Siemens have already started shipping server units with ESXi embedded. Several other OEMs such as NEC and Fujitsu have announced that they will soon start shipping servers with ESXi.
What are the Hardware requirements for ESXi?
The standalone version of VMware ESXi is certified on hardware listed in the VMware ESXi hardware compatibility guide (HCL). This list will continue to expand as we certify more servers to run ESXi. Review the ESXi Setup Guide for minimum hardware requirements.
What Operating Systems can I run on ESXi?
VMware offers the broadest operating system support as compared to any other virtualization vendor. Guest Operating System compatibility is exactly the same between equivalent versions of VMware ESX and VMware ESXi.
Will VMware Update Manager Patch my ESXi hosts?
VMware Update Manager will update both VMware ESX and VMware ESXi. An update utility is also provided for environments where VMware Update Manager is not present.
Note: The VMware ESXi host must be licensed for VMware Update Manager, available in any VMware Infrastructure suite, to patch the host.
Are there any VMware ESX features that are not compatible with ESXi?
Some specific networking features are not available in VMware ESXi, primarily those requiring configuration through the Service Console. See the Knowledge Base article for more information.
Is it possible to download a virtual appliance into an ESXi environment for evaluation?
Yes, if you are running VI Client 2.5.0 and later along with ESXi 3.5.0 or ESX 3.5.0 and later, it is possible to access a list of downloadable virtual appliances for evaluation into an ESXi environment. To access that list of virtual appliances, open your VI client, select "Virtual Appliance" from the file menu, and then select "Import...". When you select “Import from the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace” and on clicking “Next”, you will be sent to a page where you can download the appliances.
