VMware ESX 3.5

VMware's new version 3.5 ROCKS

Ok, so I've had several customers recently install and/or upgrade to VMware's ESX version 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 and I've got to say, VMware is still the king of the hill when it comes to x86 virtualization. VMware has raised the bar once again with ESX 3.5 by giving per-server RAM scalability to 256GB, per VM support of up to 64GB RAM and support for up to 32 logical processors per ESX server. Other new features include support for 64-bit guest operating systems, SATA disk drives, 10GB Ethernet, N_port ID Virtualization for Fiber Channel cards (so each VM can have it's own Worldwide Port Name (WWPN)), support for Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) and even support for IPv6 among others. Also enhanced in v3.5 is better intra-virtual machine support for Citrix Presentation Server, allowing greater scalability. VMotion has several enhancements as well and VMotion continues set VMware apart from competitors in terms of enterprise-class scalability and high availability.

In a couple of recent installs customers have taken advantage of IBM's x3650 architecture giving 12 DIMM slots and (2) CPU slots, loading these boxes up with 48GB RAM and (2) Quad-core CPUs. One customer even tested failover by running 34 production VMs on a single x3650 for nearly four days with no help desk calls and no user complaints. Also, I've seen great performance from several different types of external storage arrays including iSCSI-connected storage, fibre channel attached storage with SAS drives (and SATA for storage VMware snapshots) and even NFS-mounted disk volumes. It all boils down to I/O requirements and don't underestimate the performance characteristics of some of the newest storage arrays.

One consistent third party application that is a hands-down requirement if you're implementing VMware is Vizioncore's vRangerPro for efficient backup and recovery of your VMware virtual machines, and if you want to replicate your VM's to an offsite location look no further than Vizioncore's vReplicator.

I also get asked all the time, "So, is anyone running 'X' in a VM yet", where X is a whole host of applications. Not everything is a great candidate for virtualization, and typically CPU utilization and I/O are the two limiting factors, but yes, I've seen production instances of Oracle DB, MS SQL, MS Exchange, MS Terminal Services and even Citrix running in actual customer production environments.

Another topic that needs to be considered is virtual desktops which deserves a post of its own, but worth mentioning here. I have several LARGE customers and small ones as well taking a dual-CPU box with quad-core cpus, loading it up with RAM, installing VMware and then loading up to 64 instances of Windows XP Pro and/or Vista Business, giving end users thin client devices or letting them run desktop applications from a central location while keeping their local PC. Connectivity is accomplished via RDP which is native in XP and Vista. It's even better when you take advantage of Microsoft's Softgrid or VMware's Thinstall for application streaming and virtualization.

For more information see the VMware Blog and Release Notes.