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a t a g l a n c e
VMware® ESX™ and VMware ESXi provide the
oundation or building and managing a virtualized IT
inrastructure. These market leading, production-proven
hypervisors abstract processor, memory, storage and
networking resources into multiple virtual machines
that run unmodifed operating systems and applications.
VMware ESX and ESXi are the most widely deployedhypervisors, delivering the highest levels o reliability and
perormance to companies o all sizes.
b e n e f i t s
• Decreasehardware,powerandcoolingcostsby
running multiple operating systems on the same
physical server.
• Lowermanagementoverheadcostsbyreducingthe
hardware ootprint in the datacenter.
• Guaranteehighlevelsofperformanceforthemost
resource-intensive applications.
• Consolidatehardwareresourceswiththepeaceofmind that comes with the industry’s most widely
deployed, production-proven and secure server
virtualization platorm.
k e y f e a t u r e s
• Record-settingperformancewithupto8,900database
transactionspersecond,200,000I/Ooperationsper
second,andupto16,000Exchangemailboxesona
single physical host
• Uptoeight-wayvirtualSMP(symmetric
multiprocessing), enabling the virtualization o
multiprocessor workloads
• Memoryovercommittmentanddeduplication,
allowing higher consolidation ratios
• BroadestOSsupportofanyhypervisor,enablingIT
tovirtualizenumerousversionsofWindows®,Linux®,
Solaris®, NetWare®, and other operating systems.
• Built-inhighavailabilitythroughNICteamingandHBA
multipathing to protect against hardware component
ailures
• Upto64logicalprocessingcores,256virtualCPUs,and
512GBRAMperhost,enablinghigherconsolidation
ratios
What are VMware ESX and VMware ESXi?
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi provide the oundation or
building a reliable and dynamic IT inrastructure. These market-
leading, production-proven hypervisors abstract processor,
memory, storage and networking resources into multiple virtual
machines that each can run an unmodiied operating system
and applications. VMware ESX and ESXi are the most widely
deployed hypervisors, delivering the highest levels o reliability and
perormance to companies o all sizes.
VMware ESXi is the latest hypervisor architecture rom VMware. It
has an ultra-thin architecture with no reliance on a general-purpose
OS, yet still oers all the same unctionality and perormance o
VMware ESX. VMware ESXi sets a new bar or security and reliability
because its smaller code base represents a smaller “attack surace”
with less code to patch. This small ootprint and hardware-like
reliability also enable VMware ESXi to be built directly into industry
standard x86 servers rom leading server manuacturers such as
Dell, IBM, HP, and Fujitsu-Siemens. VMware ESXi was designed
with simplicity in mind. Its menu-driven startup and automatic
conigurations make it the easiest way to get started with VMware
virtualization.
VMware ESX
VMVM
VM VMware ESXi
VMVM
VM
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi virtualize server, storage and networking, allowing multiple applications
to run in virtual machines on the same physical server.
VMw esX d VMw esX
The Market Leading Production-Proven Hypervisors
B R O C H U R E
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B R O C H U R EV M w a r e E S X a n d E S X i
How are VMware ESX and VMware ESXi Used in theEnterprise?
VMware ESX and ESXi can be deployed as part o the
VMware vSphere™ platorm or VMware View™ suite o
products to enable centralized management and betterquality o service to datacenter applications and enterprise
desktops, enabling IT administrators to:
• Implementproductionserverconsolidationandcontain-
ment. Contain server sprawl by running sotware applica-
tions in virtual machines on ewer physical servers.
• Provideadvancedbusinesscontinuityprotectionatlower
cost. Ensure application availability during hardware
ailures or server and storage maintenance and upgrades.
• Manageandcontrolcentralizedvirtualdesktops.Provide
standardized enterprise desktop environments hosted in
virtual machines that end users can access through thinclients or PCs.
• Streamlinesoftwaredevelopmentandtesting.Consolidate
disparate development, testing and staging environments
involving multiple operating systems and multi-tier appli-
cations on the same hardware.
• Re-hostlegacyapplications.Migratelegacyoperating
systems and sotware applications to virtual machines
running on new hardware or better reliability.
VMware ESXi is also available as a ree download or
deployment as a single-server virtualization solution. IT
administrators can use the reely available VMware vSphere™
Client to manage VMware ESXi to create and manage virtualmachines.
How Do VMware ESX and VMware ESXi Work?
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi install directly on the server
hardware, inserting a robust virtualization layer between
the hardware and the operating system. VMware ESX and
ESXi partition a physical server into multiple secure and
portable virtual machines that can run side by side on the
same physical server. Each virtual machine represents a
complete system—with processors, memory, networking,
storage and BIOS—so that an operating system and
sotware applications can be installed and run in the virtualmachine without any modication. Virtual machines are also
completely isolated rom each other by the virtualization
layer, thus preventing a crash or conguration error in one
virtual machine rom aecting the others.
Sharing the physical server resources among a number
o virtual machines increases hardware utilization and
dramatically decreases capital costs. The bare-metal
architecture gives VMware ESX and ESXi complete control
over the server resources allocated to each virtual machine
and provides or near-native virtual machine perormance
and enterprise-class scalability. VMware ESX and ESXi
provide virtual machines with built-in high availability,
resource management and security eatures to deliver
improved service levels to sotware applications than static
physical environments.
What is the diference between VMware ESX andVMware ESXi?
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are both bare-metal
hypervisors that install directly on the server hardware. Both
provide industry-leading perormance and scalability; the
dierence resides in the architecture and the operational
management o VMware ESXi. VMware ESX relies on a Linux
operating system, called the service console, to perorm
some management unctions including executing scripts
and installing third-party agents or hardware monitoring,backup or systems management. The service console has
been removed rom VMware ESXi, dramatically reducing
its ootprint. By removing the service console, VMware ESXi
completes an ongoing trend o migrating management
unctionality rom this local command-line interace to
remote management tools. The unctionally o the service
console is replaced by remote command-line interaces and
adherence to system management standards.
Key Features o VMware ESX and VMware ESXi
Summary of Key New Features
• 64-bitarchitecture.Beneit rom improved perormance
andsupportforupto512GBRAMonphysicalhosts.
• Performanceoptimizationsforvirtualizedworkloads.
VMware ESX and ESXi 4.0 have undergone perormance
optimizations or speciic business-critical applications
such as Oracle Database, Microsot SQL Server, and
Microsot Exchange. Get up to 8,900 database
transactions per second, 200,000 I/O operations per
second, and up to 16,000 Exchange mailboxes per host.
• PerformanceimprovementsforiSCSIstorage.
Leverage a combination o new in-guest virtualization-
optimized SCSI drivers and VMkernel-level storage stack optimizations to dramatically improve perormance
or I/O-intensive applications such as databases and
messaging applications.
• Supportforlargervirtualmachinesandpowerful
serverhardware. Take advantage o hardware systems
with up to 64 physical CPU cores, 256 virtual CPUs, 512GB
RAM,anduptohundredsofvirtualmachinesonasingle
host to acilitate large-scale consolidation and disaster
recovery projects. Conigure virtual machines with as
muchas255GBRAM.
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B R O C H U R EV M w a r e E S X a n d E S X i
• Supportforeight-wayvirtualSMP. VMware Virtual
Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) enhances virtual
machine perormance by enabling a single virtual
machine to use up to eight physical processors,
simultaneously. VMware Virtual SMP enables virtualization
o the most CPU-intensive enterprise applications such asdatabases,ERPandCRM.
• VMwareVMsafe™.VMware VMsae is a new security
technology that helps protect virtualized workloads in
ways previously not possible with physical machines.
VMsafeprovidesasetofsecurityAPIsthatenable
third-party security products to gain the same visibility
as VMware ESX or ESXi into the operation o a virtual
machine to identiy and eliminate malware, such as
viruses, trojans and key-loggers. This advanced protection
is achieved by granular visibility into the virtual machine’s
hardware resources such as memory, CPU and disk and its
I/O systems.
• VMDirectPathforvirtualmachines. Enhance CPU
eiciency or applications that require requent access to
I/O devices by allowing select virtual machines to directly
access underlying hardware devices.
• Improvedpowermanagement. Improve energy
eiciency with dynamic voltage and requency scaling
andsupportforIntelSpeedStep®andAMDPowerNow!.
Architecture
• Bare-metal,64-bithypervisorarchitecture.Achieve
near-native virtual machine perormance, reliability andscalability with production-proven hypervisor technology
that runs directly on server hardware, without the need
or a host operating system.
• Virtualdiskfiles.Use virtual machine disk (VMDK) iles
to provide virtual machines access to their own private
datastores while giving IT administrators the lexibility to
create, manage and migrate virtual machine storage as
separate, sel-contained iles that can reside on shared
storage equipment.
• VMwarevStorageVMFS. Eliminate single points o
ailure and balance storage resources by implementingshared storage or virtual machines with VMware vStorage
Virtual Machine File System (“VMFS”), a cluster ile system
that allows multiple VMware ESX hosts to access a single
VMDK ile concurrently. VMFS is supported on a mix o
FibreChannelSAN,iSCSISAN,andNASstoragearraysin
a manner that is transparent to application owners and
end users. Download the VMFS datasheet to learn more
about VMFS, which provides new enhancements such as
dynamic increase o VMFS volume size.
• BootfromSAN.Eliminate the need to separately backup
local attached server disks by running VMware ESX hosts
on diskless conigurations o blade and rack mount
servers.
• Virtualnetworking. The virtual networking capabilitiesin VMware ESX and ESXi allow customers to build
complex networks between virtual machines residing on
a single host or across multiple installations o VMware
ESX and ESXi hosts or production deployments or
development and testing purposes. Conigure each
virtualmachinewithoneormorevirtualNIC,eachwith
itsownIPandMACaddress,tomakevirtualmachines
indistinguishable rom physical machines. Create a
simulated network within a VMware ESX host with virtual
switchesthatconnectvirtualmachines.UsevirtualLANs
(VLANs)tooverlayalogicalLANontopofphysicalLANs
to isolate network traic or security and load segregation.
Modiy network conigurations without having to changeactual cabling and switch setups.
AdvancedResourceManagement
VMware ESX oers advanced resource management
capabilities to improve perormance and increase
consolidation ratios.
• Resourcemanagementforvirtualmachines.Deine
advanced resource allocation policies or virtual machines
to improve service levels to sotware applications.
Establish minimum, maximum and proportional resource
shares or CPU, memory, disk and network bandwidth.
Modiy allocations while virtual machines are running.
• IntelligentCPUvirtualization.Manage the execution
o virtual machine processes with intelligent process
scheduling and load balancing across all available CPUs
on the physical host.
• RAMovercommitment.Increase memory utilization by
coniguring virtual machine memory that saely exceeds
the physical server memory, enabling a greater number
o virtual machines to run on a VMware ESX or ESXi host.
• Transparentpagesharing(memoryde-duplication).
UsephysicalRAMmoreefficientlybystoringmemory
pages identical across multiple virtual machines onlyonce.
• Memoryballooning.ShiftRAMdynamicallyfromidle
virtual machines to active workloads. Memory ballooning
artiicially induces memory pressure within idle virtual
machines, orcing them to use their own paging areas
and release memory or active virtual machines.
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B R O C H U R EV M w a r e E S X a n d E S X i
• Networktrafficshaping.Ensure that critical virtual
machines receive priority access to network bandwidth.
Networktrafficfromvirtualmachinescanbeprioritized
ona“fairshare”basis.NetworkTrafficShapermanages
virtual machine network traic to meet peak bandwidth,
average bandwidth and burst size constraints.
• StorageI/Otrafficprioritization. Ensure that critical
virtual machines receive priority access to storage devices
by prioritizing I/O traic on a “air share” basis.
• Improvedpowermanagement. Improve energy
eiciency with dynamic voltage and requency scaling
andsupportforIntelSpeedStep®andAMDPowerNow!.
PerformanceandScalability
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi deliver unparalleled
perormance and scalability, enabling even the most
resource intensive production applications to be virtualized.• Performanceoptimizationsforvirtualizedworkloads.
VMware ESX and ESXi 4.0 have undergone perormance
optimizations or speciic business-critical applications
such as Oracle databases, Microsot SQL Server,
and Microsot Exchange. Get up to 8,900 database
transactions per second, 200,000 I/O operations per
second, and up to 16,000 Exchange mailboxes per host.
• PerformanceimprovementsforiSCSIstorage.
Leverage a combination o new in-guest virtualization-
optimized SCSI drivers and VMkernel-level storage stack
optimizations to dramatically increase perormance
or I/O-intensive applications such as databases andmessaging applications.
• Supportforpowerfulserverhardware. Take advantage
o hardware systems with up to 64 physical CPU cores,
256virtualCPUs,512GBRAM,anduptohundredsof
virtual machines on a single host to acilitate large-scale
consolidation and disaster recovery projects.
• Supportforlargervirtualmachines.Conigure virtual
machineswithasmuchas255GBRAM.
• Supportforeight-wayvirtualSMP.VMware Virtual
Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) enhances virtual
machine perormance by enabling a single virtual
machine to use up to eight physical processors,
simultaneously. VMware Virtual SMP enables virtualization
o the most CPU-intensive enterprise applications such as
databases,ERPandCRM.
• Rawdevicemapping.Optionally,mapSANLUNsdirectly
to a virtual machine in order to enable application
clustering and array-based snapshot technology while
proiting rom the manageability beneits o VMware
vStorage VMFS.
• Supportforhardwarevirtualization.VMware ESX and
ESXi provide industry-leading support or next-generation
virtualizationhardwareassisttechnologiessuchasAMD’s
RapidVirtualizationIndexing®orIntel’sExtendedPage
Tables.
• Supportforlargememorypages.VMware ESX and
ESXi are the only hypervisors that support large memory
pages to improve eiciency o memory access or guest
operating systems.
• Networkingperformanceoptimizations.VMware
ESX and ESXi support a variety o perormance oload
technologies including TCP Segmentation Oloading
(TSO),VLANandchecksumoffloading,andjumboframes
to reduce the CPU overhead associated with processing
networkI/O.Additionally,virtualizationoptimizedI/O
performancefeaturessuchasNetQueueissupported
which signiicantly improves perormance in 10 GigabitEthernet virtualized environments.
• Supportfornewhighperformancedevicesand
protocols:VMware ESX and ESXi support 10Gb Ethernet
network cards and storage arrays and Ininiband
technology to improve virtual machine perormance.
• Supportforparavirtualization. VMware ESX and ESXi
support para-virtualized Linux guest operating systems
(Linux kernel 2.6.21 onwards) to improve virtual machine
perormance.
• VMDirectPathI/Oforvirtualmachines.Enhance CPU
eiciency or applications that require requent access toI/O devices by allowing select virtual machines to directly
access underlying hardware devices. Other virtualization
eatures, such as VMware VMotion™, hardware
independence and sharing o physical I/O devices will not
be available to the virtual machines using this eature.
HighAvailability
VMware ESX delivers datacenter-class high availability or
virtual machines.
• Built-instorageaccessmultipathing. Ensure shared
storageavailabilitywithSANmultipathingforFibre
ChanneloriSCSISAN.
• NICteaming. Give each networked virtual machine
built-inNICfailoverandloadbalancingenablinggreater
hardwareavailabilityandfaulttolerance.NICteaming
policies allow users to conigure multiple active and
standby adapters.
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B R O C H U R EV M w a r e E S X a n d E S X i
• SupportforMicrosoftClusteringServices.Cluster
virtual machines running Microsot Windows operating
system across physical hosts.
Interoperability
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are optimized, rigorouslytested and certied across the complete IT stack o servers,
storage, operating systems, and sotware applications
allowing or enterprise-wide standardization.
• Serverhardware.VMware ESX and ESXi have been
certiied with industry-leading rack, tower and blade
serversfromDell,FujitsuSiemens,HP,IBM,NEC,Sun
Microsystems and Unisys.
• Storagehardware.VMware ESX and ESXi are certiied
with a wide range o storage systems rom Dell, EMC,
Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM,
NEC,NetworkAppliance,StorageTek,SunMicrosystemsand3PAR.InternalSATAdrives,DirectAttachedStorage
(DAS),NetworkAttachedStorage(NAS)andbothfibre
channelSANandiSCSISANaresupported.
• Operatingsystems.VMware ESX and ESXi support
the broadest range o unmodiied operating systems,
includingWindows,Linux,Solaris,NovellNetWareand
more. VMware recently added support or 20 new guest
operating systems.
• Softwareapplications.Runanysoftwareapplicationin
VMware virtual machines without the need to modiy the
application.
• Virtualmachineformats. VMware ESX and ESXi can run
virtual machines created in non-VMware ormats. Using
the ree VMware vCenter Converter, users can convert and
run Microsot Virtual Server and Virtual PC, and Symantec
LiveStateRecoveryvirtualmachinesonVMwareESXand
ESXi hosts.
Security
AdvancedsecurityfeaturesinVMwareESXandESXiprotect
stored data within the virtual environment.
• VMwareVMsafe™.VMware VMsae is a new security
technology that helps protect virtualized workloads inways previously not possible with physical machines.
VMsafeprovidesasetofsecurityAPIsthatenable
third-party security products to gain the same visibility
as VMware ESX or ESXi into the operation o a virtual
machine to identiy and eliminate malware, such as
viruses, trojans and key-loggers. This advanced protection
is achieved by ine-grained visibility into the virtual
machine’s hardware resources such as memory, CPU and
disk and its I/O systems.
• VMkernelProtection.VMware ESX and ESXi are
protected rom common attacks and exploits by assuring
the integrity o the VMkernel, a core component o
the hypervisor. Disk integrity techniques in ESX and
ESXi protect the boot-up o the hypervisor by utilizing
the Trusted Platorm Module (TPM), a hardware deviceembedded in servers. VMkernel modules that load onto
disk and memory are digitally signed and validated
during load to ensure the authenticity and integrity o
dynamically loaded code and protect against malware
attempting to modiy VMkernel as it persists on disk.
VMKernel also uses memory integrity techniques at load-
time coupled with microprocessor capabilities to protect
itsel rom common buer-overlow attacks used to
exploit running code.
• Encryption: Ensure secure connection to VMware ESX
and ESXi hosts with SSL encryption.
• EnableauthenticationforiSCSIDevices:VMware ESX
and ESXi secure iSCSI devices rom unwanted intrusion
by requiring that either the host or the iSCSI initiator be
authenticated by the iSCSI device or target whenever the
hostattemptstoaccessdataonthetargetLUN.
• NetworkSecurityPolicies. Enorce security or virtual
machines at the Ethernet layer. Disallow promiscuous
modesniffingofnetworktraffic,MACaddresschanges
andforgedsourceMACtransmits.
Manageability
Several management interaces are available to more
efciently manage VMware ESX and ESXi environments. The
core management interaces used by VMware ESX and ESXi
administrators are:
• VMwarevSphere™Client.Manage VMware ESX or ESXi
hosts, virtual machines and (optionally) VMware vCenter
Server with the common user interace o the VMware
vSphere Client. The vSphere Client is available as a ree
download and can be pointed at a VMware ESX or ESXi
host or single host management, or it can be pointed at
VMware vCenter™ Server or multi-host management.
• VMwarevCenterServer.Enable centralized
management or VMware ESX and ESXi hosts andtheir virtual machines. To manage an ESX or ESXi host
withVMwarevCenterServer,aVMwarevCenterAgent
license, included in all editions o VMware vSphere™, is
required or that host. VMware vSphere includes many
more management capabilities that improve business
continuity and maximize operational eiciency such
as live migration, automatic load balancing, protection
against hardware ailures, and virtual machine back up
and restore capabilities.
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VMw, i. 3401 Hvw av Po ao ca 94304 usa t 877-486-9273 fx 650-427-5001 www.vmw.omCopyright©2009VMware,Inc.Allrightsreserved.ThisproductisprotectedbyU.S.andinternationalcopyrightandintellectualpropertylaws.VMwareproductsarecoveredbyoneormore
patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents.
VMwareisaregisteredtrademarkortrademarkofVMware,Inc.intheUnitedStatesand/orotherjurisdictions.Allothermarksandnamesmentionedhereinmaybetrademarksoftheirrespectivecompanies. ItemNo:VMW_09Q1_BRO_ESX_ESXi_EN_P6_R2
V M w a r e E S X a n d E S X i B R O C H U R E
AdditionalmanagementtoolsforVMwareESXandESXi
include:
• VMwarevSphere™Command-LineInterface4.0
(vCLI). Manage VMware ESX and ESXi through a remote
execution environment. The latest version o vCLI has anumber o new commands and is supported on both
VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware ESXi 4.0. See the vSphere
Command-LineInterfaceInstallationandReferenceGuide
<http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9247>.
• VMwarevSphere™PowerCommand-LineInterface
4.0(PowerCLI). Manage and conigure thousands
o Virtual Machines with this powerul yet easy to
use interace that is based on Microsot PowerShell
technology. PowerCLI allows IT administrators to manage
VMware ESX or ESXi through a scripting interace
managing the same tasks done with the VMware vSphere
Client.• VMwarevSphere™ManagementAssistant. The
VMwarevSphereManagementAssistantisavirtual
machine that includes a VMware vSphere command-
line interace and other prepackaged sotware that
developers and administrators can use to run agents and
scripts to manage VMware ESX and ESXi hosts.
• Agent-lessHardwareManagementwithCIM.
Common Inormation Model (CIM) provides a protocol or
monitoring hardware health and status through VMware
vCenter Server or CIM-compatible third-party tools.
Find Out More
HowCanIPurchaseVMwareESXandVMwareESXi?
VMware ESX and ESXi are included in all editions o VMware
vSphere™. To try a ree 60-day evaluation o VMware
vSphere or or more inormation on how to purchase
VMware vSphere visit the How to Buy page at http://www.
vmware.com/go/vsphere.
The standalone version o VMware ESXi is also available as a
ree download at http://www.vmware.com/go/esxi.
ProductSpecificationsandSystemRequirements
For detailed product specications and system
requirements, reer to the VMware ESX or VMware ESXi
hardware compatibility guide at http://www.vmware.com/
resources/compatibility/.
For inormation or to purchase VMware products, call 1-877-4VMWARE(outsideofNorthAmericadial+1-650-427-5000),
visit www.vmware.com/products, or search online or an
authorized reseller.
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