Comments on: The Zenith of VMware http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/ qstat -u aleonard -s z Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:16:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Andy http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/comment-page-1/#comment-165 Andy Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:41:00 +0000 http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/#comment-165 Hi Steve, First, thanks for the comments! You might be surprised to hear, a year and a half on from writing this post (you know, before ESXi was free ;) ) we've gone for a full-on VI Enterprise deployment. OpenVZ, FreeBSD jails and Solaris containers? Still use 'em, but we needed something that would work across platforms (read: Windows), and VMware still has a step on Xen, Hyper-V (and two on xVM...). The Enterprise features - HA and VMotion - penciled out eventually cost-wise in terms of reducing costs elsewhere (guess I'm eating my words there...). I admit, I still have concerns about VMware - whether Microsoft won't win in the end, and that density isn't better, but also that it's still a relatively young field compared to other IT fields: there aren't any 15-year veteran ESX admins out there, and there aren't the seasoned best practices that other admin disciplines have. (I think VI:OPS could really help in this area, so: Thank you.) As far as being an Open Source zealot? Well *I* don't think I am, but my boss might agree with you (Hi, Tom!)... but, hey, maybe that's part of why he hired me. Hi Steve,

First, thanks for the comments!

You might be surprised to hear, a year and a half on from writing this post (you know, before ESXi was free ;) ) we’ve gone for a full-on VI Enterprise deployment. OpenVZ, FreeBSD jails and Solaris containers? Still use ‘em, but we needed something that would work across platforms (read: Windows), and VMware still has a step on Xen, Hyper-V (and two on xVM…). The Enterprise features – HA and VMotion – penciled out eventually cost-wise in terms of reducing costs elsewhere (guess I’m eating my words there…).

I admit, I still have concerns about VMware – whether Microsoft won’t win in the end, and that density isn’t better, but also that it’s still a relatively young field compared to other IT fields: there aren’t any 15-year veteran ESX admins out there, and there aren’t the seasoned best practices that other admin disciplines have. (I think VI:OPS could really help in this area, so: Thank you.)

As far as being an Open Source zealot? Well *I* don’t think I am, but my boss might agree with you (Hi, Tom!)… but, hey, maybe that’s part of why he hired me.

]]> By: Steve Chambers http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/comment-page-1/#comment-163 Steve Chambers Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:53:02 +0000 http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/#comment-163 ...just adding to the last post (sorry, I should do this in one go!) - whilst ESXi is free, Foundation is listed at $1595 - for that you get the hypervisor, consolidated backup, virtual center agent, update manager, VMFS clustered file system, vSMP multi-process VM... and all the other benefits of VMware vs. competitors... I don't think it makes sense to just compare products side by side, feature by feature, because as you have eloquently said - your environment is pretty unique to you and so VMware might not make sense (but it might)... :-) …just adding to the last post (sorry, I should do this in one go!) – whilst ESXi is free, Foundation is listed at $1595 – for that you get the hypervisor, consolidated backup, virtual center agent, update manager, VMFS clustered file system, vSMP multi-process VM… and all the other benefits of VMware vs. competitors…

I don’t think it makes sense to just compare products side by side, feature by feature, because as you have eloquently said – your environment is pretty unique to you and so VMware might not make sense (but it might)…
:-)

]]> By: Steve Chambers http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/comment-page-1/#comment-162 Steve Chambers Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:38:06 +0000 http://andyleonard.com/2007/06/17/an-ode-to-containers/#comment-162 Hey Andy, nice to see you join the new VIOPS community... even though you sound like a hardened sysadmin and possible Open Source zealout (?) - haven't you seen ESXi which is free? You can also buy ESX on a graded scale going upwards. Check out ESXi: http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/ There is also a pricing whitepaper at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vi_pricing3.pdf If I can help you further in anyway, just let me know. Cheers Steve Hey Andy, nice to see you join the new VIOPS community… even though you sound like a hardened sysadmin and possible Open Source zealout (?) – haven’t you seen ESXi which is free? You can also buy ESX on a graded scale going upwards.

Check out ESXi: http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/

There is also a pricing whitepaper at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vi_pricing3.pdf

If I can help you further in anyway, just let me know.

Cheers
Steve

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