ESXi to join Player and Server as Free VMware products
There is no official announcement from VMware yet, but according to various sources from the virtualization community new VMware CEO Paul Maritz announced during the July 22 Q2 Earnings Call ESX3i will be available for free as early as July 28, 2008 (next week). Although predicted to potentially be released as a free hypervisor, ESX3i, now named ESXi, has been available from VMware since September 2007 for $495. A cheaper option for purchasing ESXi as of today is available by ordering select new server hardware models to ship with the hypervisor embedded. However, offering the bare metal ESXi for free in the future to VMware customers will certainly increase the number of installations in data centers of both small and medium businesses and enterprise organizations world wide.
In my opinion, this is a timely and needed move to counter Microsoft’s Hyper-V release and marketing hype touting Hyper-V as free add-on to Windows Server 2008.
According to virtualization.info’s article, VMware will not restrict any
functionality in the free ESX3i version.
“virtualization.info has learned some additional details about the move:
- VI 3.5 and ESX 3i will continue to share a the large majority of the code base (so there will be an ESX 3i Update 2). There will be no delays on the release of both products.
- ESX 3i will continue to have the same features that has today, without additional limitations
- ESX 3i will continue to have the same APIs, allowing anybody to develop free or commercial alternatives to VirtualCenter (despite some features like VMotion cannot be replicated because of the VMware SDK limitations).
- VMware will not require the purchase of any software & support subscription to access the product. Customer will be able to get the code without any restriction.
- The customers that purchased the current version of ESX 3i directly from the VMware online store will be eligible for a rebate.
- The ESX version that includes the Console Operating System (COS) will not be faded out (at least in the short timeframe). Most VMware customers are currently using that version and the company will support them for a long time.
- VMware Server will not be faded out (as many could suppose). The company still sees the product as a valuable proposition for a different kind of audience.”
I am only speculating, but a freely available ESXi would mean that customers can implement virtual infrastructure with VMotion for just the cost of VirtualCenter, shared storage, and the appropriate VMotion agent licensing. DRS, HA, VCB, and the various other VI3 Enterprise features VMware is known for today will still require additional agent licensing as well.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Interesting - I wonder if 3i will support more hardware - being free, makes it very attractive to test/dev labs that lack the HCL certification from VMware…
Please, VMware, do the right thing - support a few more base hardware platforms, even *unofficially*
July 24th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Leo,
Since ESXi will continue to mirror ESX 3.5 then your wish of a wider platform support stretches to include both versions. VMware has already announced they intend to certify a broader range of systems including many “white box” platforms, but my understanding about the admission to the HCL is that the process puts most of the repsonsibility of testing on the hardware vendor.
Here’s more info on certification of wider range of systems.
http://vmetc.com/2008/06/06/vmware-to-certify-broader-range-of-one-two-and-four-socket-systems/