I purchased annual support and subscription with a previous purchase. How do I upgrade to version 2.5?
For registered ESX Server customers with active Support and Subscription contracts, VMware ESX Server 2.5 is available for download at no additional cost. Your existing ESX Server 2.x serial number will continue to work with VMware ESX Server 2.5.

What Is VMware ESX Server?
VMware ESX Server is virtual infrastructure software for partitioning, consolidating and managing systems in mission-critical environments. ESX Server and VMware Virtual Infrastructure Nodes provide a highly scalable virtual machine platform with advanced resource management capabilities, which can be managed by VMware VirtualCenter.

What is a Virtual Infrastructure Node?
A VMware Virtual Infrastructure Node (VIN) is comprised of ESX Server, VMware Virtual SMP, VMotion and a VirtualCenter Agent. ESX Server Virtual Infrastructure Nodes can be deployed and managed with VMware VirtualCenter to transform your IT infrastructure into virtual infrastructure. Virtual infrastructure provides a layer of abstraction between the computing, storage and networking hardware, and the software that runs on it. Virtual infrastructure simplifies IT so companies leverage their storage, network, and computing resources to control costs and respond faster. Virtual infrastructure allows IT organizations respond faster to business demands by providing lower cost IT solutions that are more flexible and consistent.

What Can Enterprises Do with ESX Server?
Ideally suited for enterprise datacenters, ESX Server minimizes the total cost of ownership (TCO) of computing infrastructure by increasing resource utilization, expanding computing capacity and maximizing server manageability.

VMware ESX Server allows enterprises to:

• Implement server consolidation. ESX Server consolidates branch office and datacenter mission-critical applications and infrastructure services such as Exchange, SQL Server, Notes and Oracle, running on diverse operating systems onto fewer highly scalable, reliable enterprise-class servers, including blade servers.
• Lower IT costs and respond faster with virtual infrastructure. VMware Virtual Infrastructure Nodes can be deployed and managed with VMware VirtualCenter to transform your IT infrastructure into virtual infrastructure. Virtual infrastructure allows IT organizations respond faster to business demands by providing lower cost IT solutions that are more flexible and consistent.
• Dramatically improve and lower the cost of Disaster Recovery capability. Deploying ESX Server and VirtualCenter creates a unified disaster recovery (DR) platform that allows many production servers to be recovered on a single DR server, eliminating the need for costly 1-to-1 mapping of production and DR servers.

Who Should Buy ESX Server?
Since it minimizes the total cost of ownership (TCO) of computing infrastructure by increasing resource utilization, expanding computing capacity and maximizing server manageability, VMware ESX Server is ideally suited for corporate IT groups implementing server consolidation in the datacenter or for branch offices. In addition, it is suitable for IT organizations that are evaluating solutions to reduce their software provisioning and disaster recovery capability costs.

How Does ESX Server Work?
VMware ESX Server simplifies server infrastructure by partitioning and isolating server resources in secure and transportable virtual machines. VMware ESX Server allows these server resources to be remotely managed, automatically provisioned, and standardized on a uniform platform. VMware ESX Server transforms physical systems into a pool of logical computing resources. Operating systems and applications are isolated in multiple virtual machines that reside on a single piece of hardware. System resources are dynamically allocated to any virtual machine based on immediate need, giving you mainframe-class capacity utilization and mainframe-class control of your server infrastructure.

VMware ESX Server runs directly on your system hardware to provide a secure, uniform platform for easily deploying, managing, and remotely controlling more operating systems. Advanced resource management controls allow you to guarantee service levels. Previously believed to be impossible to implement on Intel hardware architecture, VMware's breakthrough virtualization technology is based on advanced systems research conducted by the VMware engineering team. VMware's patented and patent-pending technology serves as the foundation for VMware ESX Server; it is not derived from Linux or FreeBSD.

What are the Key Features in VMware ESX Server 2?

• The unique ESX Server bare-metal architecture puts a compact and highly secure virtualization layer microkernel directly on the hardware for optimum performance levels, reliability and high scalability
• Virtual machine I/O passes directly through to host devices for performance exceeding hosted virtualization technologies that insert an intervening Windows or Linux host operating system
• Virtual SMP supports enterprise workloads in multi-processor virtual machines
• Resource controls for virtual machine CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network I/O usage support service level guarantees
• Advanced memory management features permit overcommitment of memory resources for cost-effective scalability
• ESX Server supports large host systems (up to 64GB of host memory, 16 host processors, and 80 powered-on virtual machines) for scalability, extensibility, and robustness
• Remotely access virtual machines using the VMware Virtual Machine Console client and manage the ESX Server host with the browser-based management interface
• ESX Server virtual machines are compatible across the entire VMware family of virtualization products and are ready to run with VMware VirtualCenter for advanced management capabilities
• ESX Server is supported on most common x86 server and blade systems as well as with server-class storage adapters and network interfaces.
• Virtual machines are encapsulated in hardware-independent container files making it easy to store virtual machines and migrate them to any hardware running the VMware virtualization layer
• When managed by VMware VirtualCenter, ESX Server provides the revolutionary VMotion technology for migration of running virtual machines across physical hosts with zero downtime
• Built-in support for NIC Teaming, SAN multipathing and VLANs provides datacenter-level availability
• It is available as part of the VMware ESX Server Virtual Infrastructure Node which bundles the most popular VMware platform components - ESX Server, VMotion, Virtual SMP, and the VirtualCenter Agent - in a single, economical package

What Types of Applications Can Enterprises Run with ESX Server?
ESX Server can run diverse guest operating systems concurrently in separate virtual machines, and any application can run on these guest operating systems. Customers commonly deploy the following applications within virtual machines:

• Web And Application Services: Microsoft IIS, Apache, IBM WebSphere, Macromedia ColdFusion, BEA WebLogic Application Server
• Messaging: Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, other POP and IMAP services
• Databases: Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL*Server
• File and Print Services: Windows file and print services
• Remote Session Access: Citrix MetaFrame, Windows Terminal Services
• Enterprise Applications: SAP, Siebel, Peoplesoft, and Oracle Applications
• Proxy Services: Squid, Netscape Proxy Server
• Network Services: Microsoft Active Directory, iPlanet Directory Server, DHCP, DNS
• Custom developed applications

With VMware Virtual SMP, an add-on module for ESX Server, you can now take advantage of SMP capable enterprise applications such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange server, SAP, Siebel, Lotus Notes, web servers, and applications servers.

What about previous patches? Security alerts?
All security alerts and patches released for ESX Server through November 2004 are included in the final ESX Server 2.5 release.

How Is ESX Server Licensed?
ESX Server is licensed to enterprises for perpetual-use based on the number of physical processors in the host system. ESX Server is available in versions for 2, 4, 8 and 16 processors. The Virtual SMP feature is purchased separately as an add-on based on the number of host processors. ESX Server is also available as part of the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Node which packages ESX Server, Virtual SMP, VMotion and the VirtualCenter Agent together in an easy-to-order, economical bundle.

How Does this Product Differ from VMware Workstation?
ESX Server is designed for server deployment.
Its unique features include:

• Support for up to 80 concurrent virtual machines using up to 64GB of RAM on a 16 CPU system
• High system and I/O performance
• Complete resource access guarantees for CPU, RAM, network bandwidth and disk I/O
• Systems management integration with popular systems management products
• API and scripting for controlling virtual machines
• Web-based management interface
• Remote service console for your virtual machines
• Clustering support

Does ESX Server Run on Linux? On Windows?
ESX Server runs natively on server hardware, without a host operating system. The ESX Server virtualization layer is a highly compact and efficient operating system kernel entirely developed by VMware for optimum virtual machine performance. This allows ESX Server to fully manage the hardware resources and provide the highest levels of security and performance isolation. ESX Server also incorporates a service console based on a Linux 2.4 kernel that is used to boot the ESX Server virtualization layer. It also runs ESX Server administration applications.

How Is ESX Server Different from GSX Server?
ESX Server is designed for up to 16 processor departmental and enterprise servers, and runs its virtualization layer natively on hardware. VMware GSX Server is designed for workgroup and departmental servers. It runs as an application on top of a host operating system. The major differences are:

How Can I Manage ESX Server Using My Existing Management Tools?
ESX Server provides a full-featured SNMP interface and a Common Information Model (CIM) API for systems monitoring and exposes a Perl API for further control and management. Systems management packages such as IBM Director and Compaq Insight Manager, HP OpenView, Computer Associates NSM and BMC Patrol can also be used to manage ESX Server systems. Also, because ESX Server virtual machines run unmodified standard operating systems, you can run off the shelf management agents such as IBM Tivoli, Computer Associates Unicenter or BMC Patrol to monitor and manage each virtual machine.

What Kind of Hardware Do I Need?
We recommend a two or more processor x86-based server with two NIC cards and sufficient memory and disk space. Check the ESX Server specifications page for further details on specific devices supported.

What Kind of Technical Support Can I Get from VMware?
VMware offers a full range of professional services and support. VMware Professional Service specialists are available to answer questions and provide consulting services. Monthly usage charges for service providers include a basic support package. Premium plans are also available.