Derek J. Balling wrote:
>> c.       The console client “vsphere client” is windows-only; you
>> can’t manage your VM’s from a mac or linux
> 
> True, but for our purposes, all of our Mac and Linux users have (Fusion,
> VMWare Workstation) installed already so we install the vSphere client
> inside the VM.

I live this way, too. I think it's nice to be able to run my vSphere in
a Fusion VM, because the VM can VPN to the office as needed from home or
while traveling, while I leave my Mac's network alone.

>> d.      Even though it’s supposedly RHEL, you can’t do normal linuxy
>> things, like login and get a command prompt.  You can’t do much more
>> than just change your IP address.
> 
> It was far far far too easy to shoot yourself in the foot in the Service
> Console. Because it smelled like RHEL, and acted like RHEL, people
> treated it like it WAS RHEL, and would happily go installing RPMs
> willy-nilly to get a "Service Console" environment that they liked. This
> was a bad thing.

You can still do linuxy things like start/stop VMware services and even VMs.

> It's best to think of ESXi as an appliance.

I've had appliances, and I distrust them, so I learn the behind the
scenes tools for CLI on just about everything. I find it's worth my
time, and not just during crises. VMware ESX cli is reasonable as a
backup for the graphical vCenter.

> We buy our ESXi hosts as
> largish blades (Dual-Nehalem, 96GB or 144GB of RAM), with no hard
> drives, using the ESXi embedded from HP (which essentially ships with a
> USB thumbdrive internally that hosts the ESX kernel on it). Once you
> start viewing it as an appliance, life becomes more sane.

We use IBM x3850 M2's with shared fiber attached storage (several
varieties). The vMotion thing is _really_ worthwhile, both in automagic
and manual modes.

> I've long ago lost the feeling that I need to be able to rip into
> something's guts and muck about with it. Once something gets as
> rock-steady as something like ESX has become for us, I'm happy to never
> look under the hood again.

Unrelated to VMware: what's hidden under the hood cost us 41TB last
weekend; we prefer to look whenever possible. No details this week,
after action meeting is Weds.
Allan
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