VM /ETC

VMware has released Update 4 (U4) of ESX and ESXi. There are some new features available with these latest builds, so check out the Release Notes of each product (linked below).

Although there are a lot of new enhancements, probably the biggest surprise for me was the experimental support for PXE booting ESXi U4. PXE boot allows stateless servers without local hard drives. For a “how to” on PXE booting ESXi 3.5 U4 check out VMware KB Article 1008971

“The main benefit of PXE booting ESX Server 3i version 3.5 Update 4 is that it allows you to run the deployment on systems with no disk or other local persistent storage. Furthermore, PXE booting greatly simplifies both the booting and upgrading processes. Therefore, scaling to many machines is greatly facilitated. No manual installation steps are necessary when the system is fully-realized.”

This sounds like an obvious Cloud enabling technology to me!

In the past, Chris Wolf and Mike Dipetrillo both gave us glimpses of a PXE boot future for ESXi. As both bloggers have described, it appears VMware architect Lance Berc is the man to thank for this new feature. Check out their posts for more info on what is possible and how it is done.

Another major enhancement of Update 4 in my opinion is the expanded and improved Enhanced VMXnet virtual network driver. Improved network performance is now possible for the 32 bit versions of Windows Server 2003 as well as Windows XP. Update 4 appears to make my recent post on enabling the VMXnet driver obsolete!

I’ll highlight (using cut and pastes) what else caught my attention from the Release Notes of both ESX and ESXi in this rest of this post.

VMware Infrastructure 3 Release Notes

Notes:

1. Not all combinations of VirtualCenter and ESX Server versions are supported and not all of these highlighted features are available unless you are using VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 with ESX Server 3.5 Update 4. See the ESX Server, VirtualCenter, and VMware Infrastructure Client Compatibility Matrixes for more information on compatibility.
2. This version of ESX Server requires a VMware Tools upgrade.

Expanded Support for Enhanced vmxnet Adapter — This version of ESX Server includes an updated version of the VMXNET driver (VMXNET enhanced) for the following guest operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (64-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional (32-bit)

The new VMXNET version improves virtual machine networking performance and requires VMware tools upgrade.

Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems — Support for the following guest operating systems has been added specifically for this release:

For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the Guest Operating System Installation Guide: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf.

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (32-bit and 64-bit).
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (32-bit and 64-bit).
• Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition and Server Edition (32-bit and 64-bit).
• Windows Preinstallation Environment 2.0 (32-bit and 64-bit).

Furthermore, pre-built kernel modules (PBMs) were added in this release for the following guests:

• Ubuntu 8.10
• Ubuntu 8.04.2

Other newly supported devices to check out include:

• management agents
• SAS and SATA controllers
• Network Cards
• Onboard Management Processors
• Storage Arrays

ESXi 3.5 U4

ESXi 3.5 U4 mirrors all enhancements found in ESX 3.5 U4, but here is the paragraph on PXE booting from the new ESXi Release Notes:

PXE Booting Experimental Support — ESX Server 3i version 3.5 Update 4 Installable adds experimental support for PXE booting. For more information see Installing VMware ESX Server 3i Version 3.5 Update 4 Using PXE Booting (KB 1008971).

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