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VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi

Overview

What is VMware ESXi?

A bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Powerful Tool for Managing VMs: Users consistently praise VMware ESXi as a powerful tool for managing a large number of virtual machines, …
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VMware ESXI

8 out of 10
April 07, 2022
VMware Esxi is very good product. Which helps people to virtualize the environment or data center. I am using Exsi for last 5 years. …
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A class above the rest

10 out of 10
April 04, 2022
Incentivized
We use ESXi in our organization for our virtualized workloads. ESXi provides a solution for growing organizations that have way too much …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 5 features
  • Live virtual machine migration (115)
    9.3
    93%
  • Management console (127)
    8.8
    88%
  • Virtual machine automated provisioning (115)
    8.5
    85%
  • Hypervisor-level security (116)
    8.4
    84%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Unavailable

What is VMware ESXi?

A bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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What is VMware vSphere?

An enterprise workload platform, vSphere is used to improve the performance for a data center. It is used to boost operational efficiency, supercharge workload performance, and accelerate innovation.

Sorry, this product's description is unavailable

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Product Demos

VMware ESXi 5.1 Install & Configure In Oracle Virtual Box

YouTube
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Features

Server Virtualization

Server virtualization allows multiple operating systems to be run completely independently on a single server

8.7
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is VMware ESXi?

A bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.

ESXi is used to:

  • Consolidate hardware for higher capacity utilization.
  • Increase performance for a competitive edge.
  • Streamline IT administration through centralized management.
  • Reduce CapEx and OpEx.
  • Minimize hardware resources needed to run the hypervisor, boosting efficiency.

VMware ESXi Integrations

VMware ESXi Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

A bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.

Reviewers rate Live virtual machine migration highest, with a score of 9.3.

The most common users of VMware ESXi are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(806)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Powerful Tool for Managing VMs: Users consistently praise VMware ESXi as a powerful tool for managing a large number of virtual machines, with easy management of individual VM settings and configurations. Several reviewers have highlighted this aspect, emphasizing how it simplifies their virtualization workflows and enhances overall efficiency.

Cost Reduction Benefits: Many users appreciate the cost reduction benefits offered by VMware ESXi. It minimizes the need for physical servers and reduces storage footprint, resulting in electricity savings. This advantage has been mentioned by a significant number of reviewers, highlighting the financial value that VMware ESXi brings to their organizations.

Support for Various Operating Systems: The support for various operating systems, including Windows and Unix, is considered a significant advantage by users. This feature enables them to host a wide range of applications on VMware ESXi. Multiple reviewers have specifically mentioned this pro, appreciating the flexibility it provides in terms of application deployment and compatibility.

Confusing User Interface: Many users have expressed frustration with the confusing and non-intuitive user interface of VMware ESXi. This has made it challenging for them to perform tasks efficiently, causing unnecessary delays and difficulties in managing their virtual environments.

Stability Issues: Several users have encountered stability issues with VMware ESXi's hypervisor. These issues have resulted in instances of corruption, leading to the need for reinstallations. The instability not only disrupts operations but also poses potential risks to data integrity and system reliability.

High Pricing and Complexity: The pricing of VMware products is often considered a barrier, particularly for smaller businesses. Many users find the deployment process complex and excessive for their needs, requiring significant time and resources to set up properly. This can be overwhelming, especially for organizations with limited IT expertise or budget constraints.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 127)
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David Riberdy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is used for all of our Production and Test/Development environments in our organization.
  • The ability to seamlessly migrate a virtual machine from one host to another is a vital part of the virtual experience in 2023.
  • Metrics and statistics easily allow us to understand where pain points can be in the environment and to change or correct them for a better experience.
  • In my experience, service and Support is severely lacking from VMware. Over time this has gotten worse to the point where it is easier not to open a case and just guess at a solution.
  • In my opinion, pricing has gotten increasingly worse over time as well. Every year there seems to be a new way of licensing that is only in an effort to suck more money from the consumer.
  • They have been pushing more and more to the cloud but their services are not ready for primetime when they do. Horizon licenses are now pushed from the Cloud services and, in my experience, they did not work in the beginning and even now are a pain to use, so I dread going to the same for VMware ESXi.
Before, I would have said that VMware ESXi would have been great in all environments, but now I can see a case for other options in everything but the most important of Production. Test and Development environments don't always need all of the advanced features of VMware ESXi and could probably use some other form of virtual server.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We were facing multiple issues related to security and privacy due to work from home environment, and VMware helped in this regard with its top-of-the-line flagship product ESXi. Our employees love the way virtual machine work with an added layer of security, along with the great performance provided by Vmware.
  • Great secure environment for our employees.
  • Virtual machines get ready in no time, making it a quick task.
  • The performance of virtual machines is great which increases productivity.
  • The integration with the Windows server can be made smoother.
  • Cost can be reduced as compared to competitors.
  • It should be made more user-friendly for Vmware administrators.
It has been a great tool that helps us maintain a secure environment to keep our valuable client information from getting into the wrong hands. It has also gained clients' trust, which also had a positive ROI on our investment. Clients believe in VMware, and we try to deliver what our clients demand.
Brendon Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
ESXI allows us to run multiple and separate headless services on different platforms all on the same hardware, while also allowing for quick spin-up of user stations for temporary or remote access. Using VMware ESXi allows us to invest in server infrastructure instead of end-user devices, which allows us to keep maintenance and security closer to the IT department.
  • Simple deployment on metal using SD or USB.
  • Fast spin-up of guest machines.
  • Detailed information and management options for Network and Storage
  • External USB devices can have occasional issues when passing through to a VM.
  • Issues with implementing and passing through GPUs to VMs.
If you're looking for the industry standard in server virtualization, I would recommend ESXi. After decades of expertise in the field, VMware continues to provide a strong product, production-ready, with an easy-to-learn interface that allows for quick management along with less costly upfront onboarding and training. Grab the free personal-use license and install in your homelab to start!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi to host all of our VMs. It houses 95% of our on-prem infrastructure. We have a cluster of hosts that do this work with a SAN on the backend.
  • Reliability
  • Ease of use
  • Management
  • Support & updates
  • They are deprecating old hardware soon
  • Networking is difficult
It is great if you host a lot of virtual machines.
Richard Potts | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use ESXi within all of our Production, Development, & Testing environments to manage and run critical workloads that the company leverages for revenue generating applications as well as day to day IT infrastructure systems. ESXi is our management center for all of these systems and allows us to modify our virtual environment as needed.
  • Ease of use
  • Extremely intuitive
  • Easy to manage
  • Upgrade procedures could be outlined a bit better
  • Documentation could be improved to show specific images of tasks
  • Network integration and interfacing could be easier to navigate
ESXi is very well suited for managing and running small to enterprise sized workloads and allows for detailed visibility and management of your workloads within a single view. ESXi has a very low learning curve and allows administrators to ramp up quickly on how to properly and safely manage and deploy virtual environments.
May 02, 2022

Vmware Stability

Luke Kuhlow | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
ESXI is our choice for a primary virtualization program that allows us to consolidate and centrally manage our server infrastructure with ease and confidence. It allows for load balancing and proper resource shuffling for updates and patching. Provides smooth way for migrating VM's to different devices to be able to make our datacenter more efficient.
  • Manages and balances loads between hosts
  • Provides real time data and monitoring of resource usage
  • Allows for easy access and administration of virtualization
  • Alerting can be confusing due to jargon
  • Support can be complicated and lengthy to troubleshoot with
  • Integration with storage can be tricky in some cases
Vmware ESXi is the leading name in virtualization and as such has in my opinion led the way in creating and sustaining virtual environments. They excel in keeping up to date with cutting edge virtualization technology and provide reliable and up to date patches/upgrades. This program is essential for organizations with more than 1 host or more than 10 VM's. The ability to migrate and balance loads across hosts is crucial. The ability to spin up new host devices thru deployment is key to quick recovery from hardware failures.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We virtualized all servers except for our DB servers. Virtualizing 25 servers saves us on hardware, heating, cooling costs. And allows us to have them be redundant without the extra expense of doubling the hardware and the complexity with that. Virtualizing allows us to add more capacity quickly without increasing our footprint.
  • Consolidation
  • Redundancy
  • Stability
  • Improve simplicity.
  • Improve documentation.
  • Improve updates.
Pretty much any scenario except maybe with heavy DB requirements. But VMware ESXi fits almost all scenarios and highly recommend using it everywhere possible for all sizes of environments. It is a small footprint and manages any size of the environment. I have used it for 5 servers up to hundreds of VM's.
April 07, 2022

VMware ESXI

Satchidananda Rout | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
VMware Esxi is very good product. Which helps people to virtualize the environment or data center. I am using Exsi for last 5 years. VMware vsphere is giving graphical view to to control the servers. EXSI helps to vertiualize the network, storage, CPU and Memory. We can virualize whole data center and vm spinup time is very less.
  • Network virtualize
  • Storage Virtualize
  • CPU virtualize
  • Memory virualize
  • Data Storage handling
  • Network handling
  • Available with respect to internet
  • We can not access Vsphere anytime anywhere
VMware ESxi is a very stable and reliable OS. We have had longer uptime on the server by using this OS. Adding more CPUs without adding sockets is as easy it used to be. Too many servers have been created by techs that's are not correct leads some serious issue
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi at many sites to virtualize the servers they need and reduce the number of servers needed. This also helps when multiple software packages used would contend with each other if on the same server. We have a few different deployment styles and all of them help provide more flexibility for users and better uptime and maintenance for IT staff. This has really helped the workflow for our sites and increased productivity as we roll up new applications in addition to the ever-demanding need to update applications without taking down another application as we reboot VM servers.
  • VMware ESXi is a very stable and reliable OS. We have had longer uptime on the server by using this OS.
  • Using VMware ESXi allows for Windows servers to reboot faster as they don't need to go through BIOS. The VMware ESXi OS itself boots quickly too when we do need to reboot the host.
  • By using VMware ESXi, our organization has gained flexibility we have not had with smaller sites that only had a few servers. This allows us to split applications to their own servers and keep them running while maintaining different applications and not taking down everything at once.
  • Easier patching of single hosts has become a problem. We are finding it more difficult to schedule maintenance as there are more and more patches needing to be applied, and vCenter cannot update itself. For larger multi-host deployments this is not an issue.
  • Some newer updates include more features in the GUI, but at the same time make things feel buried. It is not as intuitive as it was, but with time it is not terrible to adjust.
  • Adding more CPUs without adding sockets is not as easy as it used to be. Too many servers have been created by techs that are not correct and lead to slow servers.
VMware ESXi is a very stable product that gives a lot of flexibility. The uptime provided by VMware ESXi is much higher, but when you do have a patch a single standalone host is difficult. As with anything now there are more and more patches to be done, so maintaining and staying up to date takes longer. Overall, using VMware ESXi there are so many advantages and features we can't look back to not having it in our organization. It has allowed for more applications to be deployed faster and easier than ever before.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are using the VMware ESXi to create the multiple virtual machines over single physical server. Easily we can migrate the VMs to another physical servers without any issue. Easily we can scale up and scale down the resource of VMs as per demands. VMware ESXi provides the lots easy and advanced feature like snapshot, backup & restore, resource allocation which help make project work smoothly.
  • Resource scalability
  • Operate much faster
  • Easy to take VMs backup and restore
  • Easily we can migrate the VMs between the physical servers.
  • Reliability and flexibility
  • Remove the API Limitation in free version
  • Hardware monitoring
VMware ESXi is leading name in the world for virtualization and its very user friendly administrator tool. Easily we can migrate the VMs between physical servers online. Management of VMs are much easy like Virtual machines creation, backup & restore, reboot, snapshot, resource scaling etc. We had great experience to work on VMware ESXi. VMware ESXi provide the load balance between physical servers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use ESXi in our organization for our virtualized workloads. ESXi provides a solution for growing organizations that have way too much of a physical presence. Without ESXi, datacenters would be filled with single-purpose, standalone servers. 99% of our environment currently runs on ESXi. I have used it in my previous jobs and still do in my current one.
  • Ease of management.
  • Installation is very straightforward.
  • Support is great as well as online documentation.
Having used both Hyper-V and ESXi (2 of the most popular options for businesses), I highly favor ESXi. There has been a lot of improvements made over the years to ESXi and it continues to get better. ESXi can even boot off of USB/SD, which makes it really easy to deploy. The only scenario I can think of that may be an issue is possibly licensing costs but that really depends on what your environment is like and what your goals are.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using the VMware ESXi in our different projects for different clients to manage the more than 1000 servers (Linux & Window).
We address the our problems like resource scaling and physical server load balancing. VMware ESXi provide the easy way to create the VMs and easily migrate the from one physical server to another physical online.
  • Cluster Failover
  • VMs Migration online
  • Resource allocation like Disk, CPU & Memory
  • Does not support for all Unix system like AIX
  • Better and more descriptive error logging in Vcenter
VMware ESXi is well suited for all type organization like large, medium and small setup. It can be prove really cost effective as it eliminates additional hardware every time we want new machines. VMware ESXi can be an ideal solution for large scale virtual environments.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is used as our primary means of deploying virtual machines for any business purpose with approximately 200 virtual machines across our own infrastructure and customer infrastructure. We find it to be very user friendly with good reliable performance. ESXi has earned our trust for on-prem server deployments.
  • Reliability - very well suited for production environments
  • Easy to setup, use, and maintain
  • ESXi supports a vast majority of operating systems
  • Flexible - it can be configured to suit particular needs
  • It can get expensive
VMware ESXi is well suited for both production or lab environments and it is a common virtualization solution so gaining familiarity with it will be beneficial to anyone using it. I think it is an appropriate recommendation for a vast majority of use cases for hypervisor solutions with very few exceptions that I would consider to be very specific or special/unique cases. For general virtualization VMware ESXi is the way to go.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Using VMware ESXI for multiple instances of virtual machines on one physical host. It does not require an underlying operating system to function. It is scalable operates faster and overall perform better. Being a system integrator offering support service to our customers and for our lab, we need virtual machines for operating various OS and testing purposes.
  • Operate faster.
  • Scalable.
  • Smallest hypervisors.
  • Installation process quick.
  • Don't know.
Personally, I like VMware ESXi because of its great features on top of user-friendly administration tools, the possibility of live migration of virtual machines, and the cloning of VM. Management of virtual machines like rebooting backup and restore are easy, great scalability, smallest hypervisors, installation process fast, can boot up the VMware ESXI server from the USB drive.
Adam Friedli | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to host our on-premise environment. So, it is critical in order for all of our systems to operate. It is also utilized for the disaster recovery environment. It has worked extremely well since it's been in use, and we know we can count on it to keep everything running. It's also able to load balance so our resources are used efficiently and not wasted.
  • Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.
  • Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.
  • VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.
  • We are not on the latest version yet (pre-7.0), so this might be related to our current version. Sometimes when VMs are rebooted, the virtual NIC will be in a bad state and will have no network connectivity. Disconnecting and reconnecting the vNIC will fix this quickly. It's easy to fix, but definitely an annoyance. We'll be upgrading in the near future, so we are optimistic this will be fixed.
  • Due to the complexity of the environment, it can be difficult to figure out when some odd issues are related to storage or something else. For instance, there was a time when refreshing the storage connections for all hosts fixed an issue, but there was no direct indication that anything was going on with the storage connections. I don't know if this is clearer to see in newer versions, but having a way to indicate that in some way can make certain troubleshooting easier to do.
  • Access to some resources requires a VMware account, while others do not. I can understand this is the case due to licenses being required for certain product support. We have never been in a situation where we couldn't access anything, plus we have all of the accounts and licenses we need. However, it can be confusing for someone new to managing a VMware environment why they can't access something they need to manage the environment.
I have seen and managed VMware environments of various sizes from a larger company down to small and medium businesses. I feel it is an excellent solution for all business sizes. For anyone looking for a virtual environment for their infrastructure, it works well and can scale easily as a business grows. The tools provided make management simple, and VMware support is one of the best experiences I have ever had out of all of the companies I have dealt with. They are a benchmark in that regard.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Consolidated all servers into 3 hosts, 2 switches, and SAN. We had many physical servers that were confined to their hardware specs. Now that we are not tied to hardware, we can share resources without having to swap any hardware.
  • High Availability.
  • Upgradable inline in production.
  • Easy integration with backup software.
  • Upgrade function could be more seamless.
  • vCenter snapshots could be more responsive.
  • Support is good but could always be better.
Ease of use, and it just works. Integrates seamlessly with Veeam and many SANs. Cost can be efficient if you can utilize essentials in your environment.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The majority of our servers have been virtualized, with the exception of our databases. We save money on hardware, energy, and cooling expenditures by virtualizing 25 servers. And it spares us the price and complication of doubling the gear to achieve redundancy. Using virtualization, we can swiftly increase our capacity without increasing the footprint of our infrastructure.
  • VMware ESXi is a dependable platform that provides excellent performance.
  • VMware ESXi is compatible with a wide range of operating systems, too.
  • Third-party backup programs cannot be integrated.
  • Third-party programs may be able to simplify processes and minimize the number of applications that are needed.
As long as the DB needs aren't too severe. It is highly recommended that all environments, regardless of size, use VMware ESXi wherever feasible. Regardless of the scale of the environment, it may be managed with a minimal footprint. From 5 servers to hundreds of virtual machines, it has served me well.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi in our organization to host an entire rack full of virtualized servers and have run just about every operating system over the last decade from Windows 2019 to Windows 2000 and everything in between. In general, VMWare ESXi can host all of your platforms regardless of OS and they can run it reliably and with high availability.
  • Hosting servers.
  • Allowing 3rd party integrations such as Veeam Backup.
  • Allowing administrators to adjust system resources on the fly.
  • Allowing administrators to power on/off resources or schedule maintenance.
  • Just kicking butt in general. VMware does everything really well.
  • Every product has bugs or maintenance issues from time to time and VMware is no different. There were some Log4J vulnerabilities identified in VMware recently but patches were quickly released.
VMware ESXi is well suited for businesses ranging from small to medium all the way up to large enterprises. If you have an in-house IT Department at your company you are in great hands to get started with VMware; however, if you don't have an IT department or if you are on a contract basis with a limited budget there are cloud-hosted products that may better suit your needs.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is the basis of our virtual server infrastructure. We use it to run core services on the local network. We also use it to provide virtual workstations for our staff and for testing. It quickly provides additional services to our environment.
  • Virtualizes servers and workstations across many different platforms.
  • Provides a great way to setup labs to test new services.
  • Can easily piece out part of the infrastructure for different staff based on their roles.
  • Greater support for newer OS's on previous major version of VMware ESXi.
  • Provide easier upgrade method for vCenter appliance deployed in HA mode.
  • Fix recurring issues. Often hangs or lose functionality from filled up ramdisk.
VMware ESXi is well suited anywhere you need to have services up and running quickly. Once set up, the entire hardware later is removed when standing up new servers and workstations. This immensely cuts down the time needed to bring up a new service. It also makes it quick and easy to segment new systems in their own networks.

Cost is the only scenario where it may not be appropriate. You have to invest in high performant hardware with a lot of resources.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I implemented VMware ESXi host with 2 x 6 core CPUs, 72GB RAM and 500GB local storage. To run three Windows virtual machines with different configurations such as 1) 4 vCPU, 12GB RAM and 80GB storage 2) 3 vCPU, 8GB RAM and 60GB storage 3) 2 vCPU 4GB RAM and 50GB storage. As VMware ESXi is the type 1 hypervisor, we can reduce data centre space, power and IT administrative requirements. In our use case, it was better for IT administrative requirements.
  • High-speed performance.
  • Memory occupation is less than 150 MB.
  • Itself allows for the basic creation and management of virtual machine.
  • Remove API limitations in the free version.
  • Allows more than 8 vCPUs per VM.
  • Support from VMware and documentation.
Extended page table support comes in handy if you're trying to attach a GPU to a virtual machine or if you're trying to do some sort of nested virtualization which is a good way to test Hyper-V. If you require a single virtual machine or similar needs for the machine, it is not recommended to use. But when you have fewer hardware facilities, it is highly recommended to use them.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used as the platform to host our ICS systems, both data center, and field. These systems are out HMI and supporting functions. We have 150+ VMware ESXi-based systems deployed, in over 40 states. The VMware ESXi hosts Windows-based OS servers, in addition to Linux-based support structure VMs. We do not utilize vCenter.
  • Hosting of multiple OS VMs.
  • Provides excellent troubleshooting tools.
  • It is reliable: very low down-times.
  • ESXi tends to require larger network bandwidth allocations than some of our other systems. This is problematic for remote field sites.
VMware ESXi shines when it comes to hosting VMs of various OSs, and provides troubleshooting mechanisms that are unparalleled.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi allows us to run multiple virtual servers on one physical piece of hardware. We have a virtual server for the phone, one for the e-commerce site, one for the inventory application, one as a firewall/router, and one for general file storage. It allows to easily bring up a server to test a new piece of software.
  • Save money.
  • Centralized computing.
  • Allows easy evaluation of new software.
  • Hardware monitoring.
Appropriate: Small business environment (when multiple virtual servers are needed.
Less appropriate: 24/7 environment (unless you spend lots of money on high availability servers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi with vCenter Server is how my entire server rack runs. 99% of my servers are all virtual, all running on VMware ESXi. Those 20 servers are running on 3 hosts in a cluster to maximize their fault tolerance and high availability in the event of a host failure. Over the years, I have added a myriad of Linux servers on the fly. Some Linux servers are testbeds for new systems or research into different open source systems our organization could benefit from. Others are things like intranet web servers for internal communications, database servers, or instant messaging systems. It truly gives me the flexibility to add new services as needed in my environment. My servers also run better as I move to newer hosts as I can increase memory, number of processors, and storage when needed (and when physically available on the hosts.)
  • Scalability
  • Fault tolerance resilience.
  • Centralized management.
  • Host network hardware configuration.
  • Physical-to-Virtual conversion can be tricky.
  • Some of the back-end configurations are exceptionally tricky to learn.
If you're looking for basic virtual servers that you can buy one larger server to run 5+ smaller servers on, the basic VMware ESXi license is free to use. Also good if you're testing how to create virtual servers or test a new environment. On the negative side, to use features like clustering and fault tolerance, you need a higher level license above their base "free" VMware ESXi license and the need for their vCenter Server to maintain it. That can carry a hefty annual software/support maintenance bill every year.

On the professional end, racks of individual servers reduced to a few physical hosts save space, power consumption, and financial resources. The hosts may need to be a bit more powerful than the individual servers, so one host will cost more, but a single host will cost less than replacing 5 single servers. Even if you plan a cluster, which will cost physical raw hard drive storage space like a RAID will, the cost over replacing 5 individual physical servers still comes out cheaper. If you can justify the lower cost for the physical hardware and plan to use the money unspent there to help pay for the upper level license costs, you are good to go.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently, we use VMware ESXi to host our virtual environment of servers and workstations in our organization. The business problem that we address by using VMware ESXi is that it gives us a product that we can use to easily set up a virtual environment which saves us time and money. We don't have to use physical servers and workstations to set up servers and other appliances. When other functional departments in our company require servers to be stood up we can deploy it in our VMware ESXi environment seamlessly.
  • VMware ESXi provides a wizard for the hypervisor to be installed making it very easy to configure on almost any bare metal box.
  • It provides an easy interface to see information about the Virtual Machines you have set on the VMware ESXi hypervisor.
  • VMware ESXi is also very easily upgradable. The hypervisor takes care of all the necessary tasks prior to a hypervisor upgrade, allowing for peace of mind when upgrading and no effect on the virtual machines you have running.
  • VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.
  • VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.
  • I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.
VMware ESXi is best suited for organizations looking to create or expand their virtual environment. If an organization is continuing to deploy physical workstations or servers, they can save lots of time, money, and space investing in VMware ESXi to build a virtual environment. This will also prevent further headaches in having the recover corrupt servers or workstations as ESXi makes it very easy to take snapshots and integrate 3rd party backup solutions. Where VMware ESXi is less appropriate would be for small "mom/pop" outfits that aren't requiring too many servers or virtual workstations. There is a standard equipment set and technical environment required for VMware ESXi which small business may not need to invest in if they aren't looking for virtual environment solutions.
March 24, 2022

Easy to manage

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi on all our virtual appliances and is great for managing the virtual servers on them. Makes the installation easy and straight forward and can easily remove or deploy new servers plus have all the appliances setup the same way and deploy it over and over. Would recommend it for anyone building a lot of virtual servers.
  • Easy to install.
  • Easy to manage.
  • Troubleshooting is easy.
  • Upgrading is sometimes difficult.
  • Cost
It's well suited if you are deploying an appliance with servers and you want an easy way to manage and maintain them. It's also nice if you are deploying many virtual appliances and want them set up the same way so you can easily recreate the setup. Works well on many different hardware vendors.
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