Why is VMWare considered so often
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Can you restore a Unitrends backed up VM to a different host? If you can't then I can see that that would be a severe limitation.
The the reason I would choose ESXi is that I am familiar with it.
I wouldn't be crippling myself by choosing ESXi free because if I did want to use those things sometime down the road then I could simply switch to a different hypervisor that does offer those features. I wouldn't be tied to ESXi financially because I'm using the free version.
But why build up a ESXi platform, if you simply wanted to change later if you needed more features?
Why limit what features you have today when you might need them tomorrow?
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@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I have to admit i'm a ESXi person, but only because I can install ESXi and be installing VM's within 30mins. (Backups are an issue)
Hyper-V I have to configure a workstation to be allowed to manage the host (god help me if there's a domain involved lol)
Xen - I admit, I just don't know enough about it, but from my last test it was a nightmare getting install isos onto the server to install onto VM's.I can get Hyper-V and Xen up in the same amount of time I can get ESXi setup. Each has a very simple installer.
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@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Xen - I admit, I just don't know enough about it, but from my last test it was a nightmare getting install isos onto the server to install onto VM's.
Having done both, it is essentially identical to ESXi Free but without the licensing risks and complications. So... way easier.
XenServer you just pop in the ISO, same as ESXi Free, and it is ready in a few minutes. Easy peasy.
For ISOs, you don't load them at all. You just share out a folder from your desktop with them and that's how it does it. VMware makes you upload them before use, XS uploads them as used.
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Time to install XenServer again me thinks
(any tips on using ISO's to install into VM's??) -
@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Time to install XenServer again me thinks
(any tips on using ISO's to install into VM's??)What tips do you need? It's so easy I'm not sure how to improve it.
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@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Time to install XenServer again me thinks
(any tips on using ISO's to install into VM's??)Yeah the installer is super simple, I mean literally so simple that you might miss the key option of "Thin provision" and have to start over.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
The the reason I would choose ESXi is that I am familiar with it.
That's what you were missing above. I assume you mean that you are also not familiar with the alternatives?
That's a valid reason, but I would encourage you to look at XenServer. It's so easy, moving to it from ESXi Free is like a five minute learning curve and then you get all these cool features.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
But why build up a ESXi platform, if you simply wanted to change later if you needed more features?
Why limit what features you have today when you might need them tomorrow?We're talking two VMs and one host here. Hardly a large ESXi platform.
I haven't tried Unitrends free with ESXi free. I may give it a go. What exactly are the limitations?
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Time to install XenServer again me thinks
(any tips on using ISO's to install into VM's??)Yeah the installer is super simple, I mean literally so simple that you might miss the key option of "Thin provision" and have to start over.
That's the worst. I had to build my home lab twice to before I remembered that option.
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@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I have to admit i'm a ESXi person, but only because I can install ESXi and be installing VM's within 30mins. (Backups are an issue)
Hyper-V I have to configure a workstation to be allowed to manage the host (god help me if there's a domain involved lol)
Xen - I admit, I just don't know enough about it, but from my last test it was a nightmare getting install isos onto the server to install onto VM's.Why not just domain join Hyper-V? our Vsphere is domain joined.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@DustinB3403 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
But why build up a ESXi platform, if you simply wanted to change later if you needed more features?
Why limit what features you have today when you might need them tomorrow?We're talking two VMs and one host here. Hardly a large ESXi platform.
I haven't tried Unitrends free with ESXi free. I may give it a go. What exactly are the limitations?
But it's still an investment and platform setup and eventual tear down, just because a poor decision was made that was comfortable at one time, doesn't make it the right decision.
Move on, don't spend more time with a limited platform. (the ESXi free version) If you need the paid features of ESXi fine, but be prepared to pay for it.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I haven't tried Unitrends free with ESXi free. I may give it a go. What exactly are the limitations?
Limitations are that you can only back up eight VMs tops, that it treats them as physical servers and requires you to install an agent onto each one and it can't take an image of them so you lose the Unitrends features like being able to restore to disparate hardware or do automatic recovery and recovery is slower. And there is an ongoing dispute as to whether or not it really offers this. I keep asking and the answer is different each time, I can never get a straight answer. We don't use the free version so never play with it, but I ask "can it do ESXi Free" and they say yes, they I ask if it uses agents and they say "no, you can't use agents." So does it or doesn't it? no one knows.
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@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Time to install XenServer again me thinks
(any tips on using ISO's to install into VM's??)CentOS 7 Minimal and/or Netinstall.
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One of the things that I find in shops using ESXi Free is that they are not virtualizing everything or making decisions about scale or whatever based on the limitations of ESXi Free much of the time. Why no single pane of glass? Because only one server. Why only one server? Because no single pain of glass. Round and round it goes.
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@travisdh1 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
Time to install XenServer again me thinks
(any tips on using ISO's to install into VM's??)CentOS 7 Minimal and/or Netinstall.
I would just download the XS iso directly from xenserver.org
No reason to install it as a part of CentOS. Unless you're looking to have larger than 2TB partitions.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I haven't tried Unitrends free with ESXi free. I may give it a go. What exactly are the limitations?
Limitations are that you can only back up eight VMs tops, that it treats them as physical servers and requires you to install an agent onto each one and it can't take an image of them so you lose the Unitrends features like being able to restore to disparate hardware or do automatic recovery and recovery is slower. And there is an ongoing dispute as to whether or not it really offers this. I keep asking and the answer is different each time, I can never get a straight answer. We don't use the free version so never play with it, but I ask "can it do ESXi Free" and they say yes, they I ask if it uses agents and they say "no, you can't use agents." So does it or doesn't it? no one knows.
I use it at home, and yes, it requires agents if running free ESXi.
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@Jason said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@hobbit666 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I have to admit i'm a ESXi person, but only because I can install ESXi and be installing VM's within 30mins. (Backups are an issue)
Hyper-V I have to configure a workstation to be allowed to manage the host (god help me if there's a domain involved lol)
Xen - I admit, I just don't know enough about it, but from my last test it was a nightmare getting install isos onto the server to install onto VM's.Why not just domain join Hyper-V? our Vsphere is domain joined.
I would like to hear the argument as well. Although do you really join VSphere to the domain or do you use the domain as an authentication mechanism?
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@marcinozga said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I haven't tried Unitrends free with ESXi free. I may give it a go. What exactly are the limitations?
Limitations are that you can only back up eight VMs tops, that it treats them as physical servers and requires you to install an agent onto each one and it can't take an image of them so you lose the Unitrends features like being able to restore to disparate hardware or do automatic recovery and recovery is slower. And there is an ongoing dispute as to whether or not it really offers this. I keep asking and the answer is different each time, I can never get a straight answer. We don't use the free version so never play with it, but I ask "can it do ESXi Free" and they say yes, they I ask if it uses agents and they say "no, you can't use agents." So does it or doesn't it? no one knows.
I use it at home, and yes, it requires agents if running free ESXi.
This sounds like confirmation to me @scottalanmiller .
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@marcinozga said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I use it at home, and yes, it requires agents if running free ESXi.
Which is the only way it "can" work, but Unitrends keeps telling me that agents are not allowed with it.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@marcinozga said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
@Carnival-Boy said in Why is VMWare considered so often:
I haven't tried Unitrends free with ESXi free. I may give it a go. What exactly are the limitations?
Limitations are that you can only back up eight VMs tops, that it treats them as physical servers and requires you to install an agent onto each one and it can't take an image of them so you lose the Unitrends features like being able to restore to disparate hardware or do automatic recovery and recovery is slower. And there is an ongoing dispute as to whether or not it really offers this. I keep asking and the answer is different each time, I can never get a straight answer. We don't use the free version so never play with it, but I ask "can it do ESXi Free" and they say yes, they I ask if it uses agents and they say "no, you can't use agents." So does it or doesn't it? no one knows.
I use it at home, and yes, it requires agents if running free ESXi.
This sounds like confirmation to me @scottalanmiller .
Not if the issue is licensing.
