Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Grant Taylor via mailop]

On 4/17/24 2:07 PM, Grant Taylor via mailop wrote:
Research clustered file systems and / or clustered LVM.  What you find 
should have SIGNIFICANT overlap with and much of it will probably be 
possible in Proxmox.


Here's some additional reading that might be of interest.

TL;DR:  Glowsome has been doing the very type of things I was suggesting 
should be possible.  Multiple hosts concurrently accessing shared 
storage block storage; GFS2 + CLVM + DLM shared storage.


Link - Shared Storage in proxmox - GFS2 | Proxmox Support Forum
 - https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/shared-storage-in-proxmox-gfs2.121604/

Link - [TUTORIAL] - PVE 7.x Cluster Setup of shared LVM/LV with MSA2040 
SAS [partial howto] | Proxmox Support Forum
 - 
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/pve-7-x-cluster-setup-of-shared-lvm-lv-with-msa2040-sas-partial-howto.57536/




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Grant Taylor via mailop]

On 4/16/24 23:42, Bruno Flückiger via mailop wrote:
Proxmox does not support the current architecture I have at work: 
clusters of hosts served by a central storage system connected to the 
hosts by FC SAN. I run few huge volumes on the storage that are shared 
among the cluster hosts. As I have seen this architecture in many 
companies I think I can the lack of support for it a shortcoming.


This surprises me.

The Proxmox VE Storage page implies that it's possible.

Link - Storage - Proxmox VE
 - https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage

The last time I looked at Proxmox (multiple years now) it was just a 
role specific distribution of Linux.  I know for a fact that Linux 
supports shared storage, I've done it multiple times with multiple 
different clustered file systems.


I would be flabbergasted if you weren't able to add the small number of 
pieces needed on top of Proxmox to make this work.  You'll need a 
distributed lock manager and a cluster aware file system.  There are 
multiple options for Linux.


Research clustered file systems and / or clustered LVM.  What you find 
should have SIGNIFICANT overlap with and much of it will probably be 
possible in Proxmox.




--
Grant. . . .


smime.p7s
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Bruno Flückiger via mailop]

On 17.04.2024 09:56, Andrew C Aitchison via mailop wrote:

On Wed, 17 Apr 2024, Bruno Flückiger via mailop wrote:

What sort of shortcomings do you see for, say, Proxmox?  I would say 
that by using Open vSwitch & Free Range Routing (with EVPN), one can 
get pretty close to the VMware NSX.  And with enabling Ceph on 
Proxmox, one can get the VSan-like functional distributed/block 
storage.  Then throw Ansible at it for automation. 


Proxmox does not support the current architecture I have at work: 
clusters of hosts served by a central storage system connected to the 
hosts by FC SAN. I run few huge volumes on the storage that are shared 
among the cluster hosts. As I have seen this architecture in many 
companies I think I can the lack of support for it a shortcoming.


It might be an old fashioned architecture, but it served me well for 
many years. I know I could work around that by presenting individual 
volumes to each host and then put Ceph on it to get something like 
vSAN. But that would be a) a ton of work and b) a mixture of 
architecture that increases complexity.


Unfortunately we just bought new hosts and a storage system tailored 
to that architecture just a few weeks before the mess with VMware 
became public. So I'm stuck with the architecture for the next couple 
of years.


So you are looking for someone to add support for that architecture to 
Proxmox, maybe in a consortium with other interested parties ?


[ I am *not* bidding, nor interested in joining the consortium. ]



Not really. Time is of the essence here. If we must replace VMware it 
must happen within the next four months for various reasons. I doubt 
that it is possible to add the support and have it stable in this short 
time. And in about four years when the next hardware replacement is due 
I will have to rethink the whole architecture anyway before buying new 
systems.

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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Niels Dettenbach via mailop]

Am Dienstag, 16. April 2024, 14:15:17 CEST schrieb Raymond Burkholder via 
mailop:
> > Similar products are Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Linux Virtualization
> > Manager (OLVM), Proxmox and Nutanix. Each one of these products has
> > some shortcommings compared to VMware. If you don't need a GUI to
> > manage your virtual environment you might consider using KVM (Linux)
> > or bhyve (FreeBSD) as hypervisor.

We use Xen since decades now in a full open source setup - running Linux as 
NetBSD in PV and PVH mode (Paravirtualization) and PVH (paravirtualized full 
virt) mode, but offers full hardware virtualization as well.

Main reason is: performance and flexibility for typical internet server 
applications / network aplications with PV / PVH modes.

Main reason why Xen is less known -  Xen has no own mechanism to create new 
VM (domU) instances - this has to be done manually or by third party 
management tools. There are different management tools which offer "less or 
more similiar to VMware" GUIs to/with Xen.

We are using our own Xen Hostsystem (dom0) distribution (Gentoo Linux based).

For more:
https://xenproject.org/



hth
cheers,


niels.

-- 
 ---
 Niels Dettenbach
 Syndicat IT & Internet
 https://www.syndicat.com
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 ---
 






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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Andrew C Aitchison via mailop]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2024, Bruno Flückiger via mailop wrote:

What sort of shortcomings do you see for, say, Proxmox?  I would say 
that by using Open vSwitch & Free Range Routing (with EVPN), one can 
get pretty close to the VMware NSX.  And with enabling Ceph on Proxmox, 
one can get the VSan-like functional distributed/block storage.  Then 
throw Ansible at it for automation. 


Proxmox does not support the current architecture I have at work: 
clusters of hosts served by a central storage system connected to the 
hosts by FC SAN. I run few huge volumes on the storage that are shared 
among the cluster hosts. As I have seen this architecture in many 
companies I think I can the lack of support for it a shortcoming.


It might be an old fashioned architecture, but it served me well for many 
years. I know I could work around that by presenting individual volumes 
to each host and then put Ceph on it to get something like vSAN. But that 
would be a) a ton of work and b) a mixture of architecture that increases 
complexity.


Unfortunately we just bought new hosts and a storage system tailored to 
that architecture just a few weeks before the mess with VMware became 
public. So I'm stuck with the architecture for the next couple of years.


So you are looking for someone to add support for that architecture to 
Proxmox, maybe in a consortium with other interested parties ?


[ I am *not* bidding, nor interested in joining the consortium. ]

--
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Bruno Flückiger via mailop]

On 16.04.2024 14:15, Raymond Burkholder via mailop wrote:

On 2024-04-15 22:47, Bruno Flückiger via mailop wrote:

On 15.04.2024 22:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:

Hi All,

We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare 
license after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation 
mode for about 30 more days.




Similar products are Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Linux Virtualization 
Manager (OLVM), Proxmox and Nutanix. Each one of these products has 
some shortcommings compared to VMware. If you don't need a GUI to 
manage your virtual environment you might consider using KVM (Linux) 
or bhyve (FreeBSD) as hypervisor.



What sort of shortcomings do you see for, say, Proxmox?  I would say 
that by using Open vSwitch & Free Range Routing (with EVPN), one can 
get pretty close to the VMware NSX.  And with enabling Ceph on Proxmox, 
one can get the VSan-like functional distributed/block storage.  Then 
throw Ansible at it for automation.  And Prometheus/Grafana for 
monitoring/observability.




Proxmox does not support the current architecture I have at work: 
clusters of hosts served by a central storage system connected to the 
hosts by FC SAN. I run few huge volumes on the storage that are shared 
among the cluster hosts. As I have seen this architecture in many 
companies I think I can the lack of support for it a shortcoming.


It might be an old fashioned architecture, but it served me well for 
many years. I know I could work around that by presenting individual 
volumes to each host and then put Ceph on it to get something like vSAN. 
But that would be a) a ton of work and b) a mixture of architecture that 
increases complexity.


Unfortunately we just bought new hosts and a storage system tailored to 
that architecture just a few weeks before the mess with VMware became 
public. So I'm stuck with the architecture for the next couple of years.




At work we are currently building a PoC with OLVM as we have Oracle 
licenses anyway. And because OVLM is the one product that comes 
closest to the feature set of VMware we need. But I still hope we find 
a way forward with VMware. Moving everything to Oracle gives me 
nightmares.



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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Dan Mahoney via mailop]

> On Apr 15, 2024, at 16:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop  
> wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare license 
> after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation mode for about 30 
> more days.
> 
> Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is there an 
> alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have a spare license 
> we can use?

This was especially obnoxious of them, because normally your license key for 
the “free” ESXI, which was useful if you just wanted a standalone box in a 
closet to run a few things, lived in VMWare customer connect.  Your need for 
things like VCenter came in when you wanted a central control plane, or access 
to features like VMotion.

And now, not only have they not removed access to the ISOs, but license keys 
that they *gave to you* are magically disappeared.  Those licenses would still 
work — vmware machines do not “phone home” in any way.  The features are coded 
into the license key itself.

Put another way: you should not have to rely on data-hoarding screenshots of 
the management UI to get what you were already granted.

-Dan
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Carsten Schiefner via mailop]

On 16.04.2024 16:06, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:
As the original poster, I wanted to say thanks.  Based on the dozen or 
so replies so far, I clearly struck a nerve.  I'm reading all the 
replies with great interest.


Even without having any of your current itches, Kevin, I am having a 
close eye on this particular thread and will certainly keep it for 
further reference.


Thanks, folks, for all your contributions, assessments etc. - truly 
appreciated!


Best,

-C.
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Christoph Haas via mailop]

Hello Kevin,

I'd  give another "+1" for Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE) [1] as  
drop-in replacement for your VMware!


I'm using several Proxmox-setups (mainly PVE) in different  
environments and I'm just happy with it!!!


It supports full virtualization through KVM, Linux-containers through  
LXC, it's support is good and has a top price-performance ratio, the  
web-ui is smooth and functional, you can also build clusters e.g. with  
CEPH-storage.


It integrates very well with the Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) [2] and  
the Proxmox Mail Gateway (PMG) [3]



You can at least give it a try, since you can download and install the  
community edition of the PVE, PBS and PMG for free [4]


PVE community edition differs from the "pro" variants that is ha no  
access to the enterprise repository and no professional support, just  
community support through the forum [5].


Christoph.
P.S.: I'm not affiliated with Proxmox in any way, but I'm a happy user  
spreading the word and an Open Source Enthusiast :-)



[1] https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-virtual-environment/overview
[2] https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-backup-server/overview
[3] https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-mail-gateway/overview
[4] https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Installation or search for "proxmox  
pve community install and setup guide" - there are several guides in  
the wild :-)

[5] https://forum.proxmox.com/


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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Chris Adams via mailop]

Once upon a time, Jaroslaw Rafa  said:
> You can very well have a GUI when using KVM - virt-manager is a very nice
> piece of GUI to manage virtual machines running under KVM...
> 
> Of course it's not a web-GUI, ie. virt-manager is just an ordinary X
> application running on the host OS (I routinely use it remotely, from my
> desktop Linux PC which has a full X desktop running).

Cockpit can provide some basic KVM/libvirt VM management (including
graphical and serial consoles) in a web browser.

-- 
Chris Adams 
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Raymond Burkholder via mailop]

On 2024-04-15 22:47, Bruno Flückiger via mailop wrote:

On 15.04.2024 22:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:

Hi All,

We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare 
license after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation 
mode for about 30 more days.




Similar products are Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Linux Virtualization 
Manager (OLVM), Proxmox and Nutanix. Each one of these products has 
some shortcommings compared to VMware. If you don't need a GUI to 
manage your virtual environment you might consider using KVM (Linux) 
or bhyve (FreeBSD) as hypervisor.



What sort of shortcomings do you see for, say, Proxmox?  I would say 
that by using Open vSwitch & Free Range Routing (with EVPN), one can get 
pretty close to the VMware NSX.  And with enabling Ceph on Proxmox, one 
can get the VSan-like functional distributed/block storage.  Then throw 
Ansible at it for automation.  And Prometheus/Grafana for 
monitoring/observability.




At work we are currently building a PoC with OLVM as we have Oracle 
licenses anyway. And because OVLM is the one product that comes 
closest to the feature set of VMware we need. But I still hope we find 
a way forward with VMware. Moving everything to Oracle gives me 
nightmares.



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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop]

Dnia 16.04.2024 o godz. 06:47:44 Bruno Flückiger via mailop pisze:
> Similar products are Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Linux Virtualization
> Manager (OLVM), Proxmox and Nutanix. Each one of these products has
> some shortcommings compared to VMware. If you don't need a GUI to
> manage your virtual environment you might consider using KVM (Linux)
> or bhyve (FreeBSD) as hypervisor.

You can very well have a GUI when using KVM - virt-manager is a very nice
piece of GUI to manage virtual machines running under KVM...

Of course it's not a web-GUI, ie. virt-manager is just an ordinary X
application running on the host OS (I routinely use it remotely, from my
desktop Linux PC which has a full X desktop running).
-- 
Regards,
   Jaroslaw Rafa
   r...@rafa.eu.org
--
"In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there
was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub."
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Paul Menzel via mailop]

Dear Eric,


Am 16.04.24 um 01:06 schrieb Eric Tykwinski via mailop:
I know this is totally off topic now, but how are you feeling about 
their support contracts. (ProxMox)


(Nit: Proxmox is the official spelling – no camel-case.)

1.020 €/(year & CPU socket) for the plan *Premium* is quite cheap for 
what you get in my opinion [1]:



•   Access to Enterprise repository
•   Complete feature-set
•   Support via Customer Portal
•   Unlimited support tickets
•   Response time: 2 hours*
•   within a business day
•   Remote support (via SSH)
•   Offline subscription key activation


They also have a bug tracking system [2], and also work upstream to some 
agree. There are some commits in the Linux kernel from them, and also 
some commits with their Reported-by and Tested-by tags.


The only thing, I do not like about Proxmox is ZFS, which is not in the 
upstream Linux kernel due to licensing incompatibilities.



I’m honestly playing around with the OS, as we are running VMWare 8.x
perpetual now, and slated to migrate off.  I barely used TAC on
VMWare maybe 3 times in 12 years, but having that option on
production is required.
For FLOSS projects, selling subscriptions and services & support is 
their way to pay their developers to maintain and develop the product. 
Always with the risk, somebody comes a long and forks the project and 
takes away their business. People (pupils/students) and organizations 
(some charities) with no resources can use it for free, but 
organizations, which, for example, were able to buy VMWare products, 
should support the project. Even if it’s unlikely they are ever going to 
open a support ticket. I urge everyone using FLOSS to support the projects.


In my opinion, for FLOSS projects the goal should be to pay at least 
double the price, the proprietary, closed-source market leader charges.



Kind regards,

Paul


[1]: https://proxmox.com/en/proxmox-virtual-environment/pricing
[2]: http://bugzilla.proxmox.com/
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Eduardo Diaz Comellas via mailop]

Hi,

We use XCPng in several clusters (with 9, 8 and 6 nodes, and several 
others with 2-3 nodes, all with shared storage) with great success. It 
is free software and you can purchase support if you want. We have been 
using Xen-ish since before the Citrix era and we can see that XCPng is 
not only mature but feature complete as well.


Best regards.


On 16/4/24 6:47, Bruno Flückiger via mailop wrote:

On 15.04.2024 22:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:

Hi All,

We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare 
license after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation 
mode for about 30 more days.


Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy? Is 
there an alternative you've been switching over to using? Anyone have 
a spare license we can use?


Regards,

KAM



Similar products are Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Linux Virtualization 
Manager (OLVM), Proxmox and Nutanix. Each one of these products has 
some shortcommings compared to VMware. If you don't need a GUI to 
manage your virtual environment you might consider using KVM (Linux) 
or bhyve (FreeBSD) as hypervisor.


At work we are currently building a PoC with OLVM as we have Oracle 
licenses anyway. And because OVLM is the one product that comes 
closest to the feature set of VMware we need. But I still hope we find 
a way forward with VMware. Moving everything to Oracle gives me 
nightmares.


Personally I don't think XCP-ng is the horse one should bet on. Xen as 
a hypervisor has the same history as Linux on the desktop: next year 
it will be big. Well, many next years have come and gone. But the 
prophecy didn't come true.


Cheers,
Bruno
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--
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Ultreia Comunicaciones, S.L.

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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Bruno Flückiger via mailop]

On 15.04.2024 22:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:

Hi All,

We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare 
license after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation mode 
for about 30 more days.


Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is there 
an alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have a 
spare license we can use?


Regards,

KAM



Similar products are Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Linux Virtualization 
Manager (OLVM), Proxmox and Nutanix. Each one of these products has some 
shortcommings compared to VMware. If you don't need a GUI to manage your 
virtual environment you might consider using KVM (Linux) or bhyve 
(FreeBSD) as hypervisor.


At work we are currently building a PoC with OLVM as we have Oracle 
licenses anyway. And because OVLM is the one product that comes closest 
to the feature set of VMware we need. But I still hope we find a way 
forward with VMware. Moving everything to Oracle gives me nightmares.


Personally I don't think XCP-ng is the horse one should bet on. Xen as a 
hypervisor has the same history as Linux on the desktop: next year it 
will be big. Well, many next years have come and gone. But the prophecy 
didn't come true.


Cheers,
Bruno
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Eric Tykwinski via mailop]

I know this is totally off topic now, but how are you feeling about their 
support contracts. (ProxMox)  I’m honestly playing around with the OS, as we 
are running VMWare 8.x perpetual now, and slated to migrate off.  I barely used 
TAC on VMWare maybe 3 times in 12 years, but having that option on production 
is required.

> On Apr 15, 2024, at 5:18 PM, Barnabas Toth via mailop  
> wrote:
> 
> Proxmox has 'New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based 
> Virtual Machines' see 
> https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/new-import-wizard-available-for-migrating-vmware-esxi-based-virtual-machines.144023/.
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Barnabas Toth | webmas...@speckz.com 
> Bio, Portfolio, Resume, and Services @ https://speckz.com
>  Pronouns: he/him/his
>  
> 
> On Mon, Apr 15, 2024 at 5:10 PM Richard Laager via mailop  > wrote:
>> On 2024-04-15 15:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:
>>> We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare license 
>>> after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation mode for about 
>>> 30 more days. 
>>> 
>>> Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is there an 
>>> alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have a spare 
>>> license we can use?
>> 
>> Install Linux on the bare metal. Then:
>> 
>> Proxmox is popular. I believe it has a web interface.
>> 
>> or
>> 
>> libvirt + virt-manager (assuming your management computer runs Linux with a 
>> GUI). I use this in production.
>> 
>> The transition might be a bit tricky depending on where the data is stored. 
>> Assuming it's local, you're going to need to copy the VM disk images off in 
>> some fashion before you reformat. If you have the resources, the safest 
>> would be to move VMs off one server to the other three to free up one 
>> server, then reformat that server, then move VMs from one of the other three 
>> to it, then repeat. Note that the emulated hardware will be slightly 
>> different too, which will take some tweaking. If the guests are Linux, 
>> that's probably pretty straightforward. If they are Windows, it might be 
>> more unhappy (e.g. triggering a need for re-activation).
>> 
>> -- 
>> Richard
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Michael Irvine via mailop]

+1 for Proxmox. Hyper-V is a close 2nd. XCP-ng is a name I am hearing more 
from. I will be testing them in the coming weeks from my labs.

Thanks,

Michael Irvine | Network Lead
Great Computer Solutions
O: 847-763-0763 | M: 224-435-6331
E: m...@greatsys.com<mailto:m...@greatsys.com> W: 
www.greatsys.com<http://www.greatsys.com>
A: 5152 Main St, Skokie, IL 60077
Meet: Schedule a call with 
me<https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/gcsconsult...@greatsys.com/bookings/>
[cid:image001.png@01DA8F50.481E6C80]
"Empowering Your Business Through Technology"

From: mailop  On Behalf Of Richard Laager via mailop
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2024 4:06 PM
To: mailop@mailop.org
Subject: Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click 
any links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the 
content is safe.

On 2024-04-15 15:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:
We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare license after 
Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation mode for about 30 more 
days.

Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is there an 
alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have a spare license 
we can use?



Install Linux on the bare metal. Then:

Proxmox is popular. I believe it has a web interface.

or

libvirt + virt-manager (assuming your management computer runs Linux with a 
GUI). I use this in production.

The transition might be a bit tricky depending on where the data is stored. 
Assuming it's local, you're going to need to copy the VM disk images off in 
some fashion before you reformat. If you have the resources, the safest would 
be to move VMs off one server to the other three to free up one server, then 
reformat that server, then move VMs from one of the other three to it, then 
repeat. Note that the emulated hardware will be slightly different too, which 
will take some tweaking. If the guests are Linux, that's probably pretty 
straightforward. If they are Windows, it might be more unhappy (e.g. triggering 
a need for re-activation).

--

Richard
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Barnabas Toth via mailop]

Proxmox has 'New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based
Virtual Machines' see
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/new-import-wizard-available-for-migrating-vmware-esxi-based-virtual-machines.144023/
.

Best Regards,

Barnabas Toth | webmas...@speckz.com
Bio, Portfolio, Resume, and Services @ https://speckz.com
Pronouns: he/him/his



On Mon, Apr 15, 2024 at 5:10 PM Richard Laager via mailop 
wrote:

> On 2024-04-15 15:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:
>
> We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare license
> after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation mode for about
> 30 more days.
>
> Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is there an
> alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have a spare
> license we can use?
>
>
> Install Linux on the bare metal. Then:
>
> Proxmox is popular. I believe it has a web interface.
>
> or
>
> libvirt + virt-manager (assuming your management computer runs Linux with
> a GUI). I use this in production.
>
> The transition might be a bit tricky depending on where the data is
> stored. Assuming it's local, you're going to need to copy the VM disk
> images off in some fashion before you reformat. If you have the resources,
> the safest would be to move VMs off one server to the other three to free
> up one server, then reformat that server, then move VMs from one of the
> other three to it, then repeat. Note that the emulated hardware will be
> slightly different too, which will take some tweaking. If the guests are
> Linux, that's probably pretty straightforward. If they are Windows, it
> might be more unhappy (e.g. triggering a need for re-activation).
>
> --
> Richard
>
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Re: [mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Richard Laager via mailop]

On 2024-04-15 15:40, Kevin A. McGrail via mailop wrote:
We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare 
license after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation 
mode for about 30 more days.


Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is 
there an alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have 
a spare license we can use?



Install Linux on the bare metal. Then:

Proxmox is popular. I believe it has a web interface.

or

libvirt + virt-manager (assuming your management computer runs Linux 
with a GUI). I use this in production.


The transition might be a bit tricky depending on where the data is 
stored. Assuming it's local, you're going to need to copy the VM disk 
images off in some fashion before you reformat. If you have the 
resources, the safest would be to move VMs off one server to the other 
three to free up one server, then reformat that server, then move VMs 
from one of the other three to it, then repeat. Note that the emulated 
hardware will be slightly different too, which will take some tweaking. 
If the guests are Linux, that's probably pretty straightforward. If they 
are Windows, it might be more unhappy (e.g. triggering a need for 
re-activation).


--
Richard
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[mailop] Off-Topic - VMWare ESXI 7.0

[Kevin A. McGrail via mailop]

Hi All,

We have four servers where we can't retrieve our free ESXi VMWare 
license after Broadcom shut things down and they are in evaluation mode 
for about 30 more days.


Does any one have any advice?  Is there a product we can buy?  Is there 
an alternative you've been switching over to using?  Anyone have a spare 
license we can use?


Regards,

KAM

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