Update: Looking for low-cost VMware Backup for small environments?
Access a single platform to manage multiple VMware vSphere environments. Control up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines, use any web browser to manage various functions, assign custom roles to users, search the database, or add new virtual machines. You can download VMware vCenter Server 5.5.0 from our software library for free. The following versions: 5.5, 5.1 and 5.0 are the most frequently downloaded ones by the program users. Free version Hypervisor (Esxi) Version 6.0. 2 (physical) CPU limit; No Ram limit (removed since 5.5) Hypervisor Spec. Number of cores per physical CPU: No limit; Number of physical CPUs per host: No limit; Number of logical CPUs per host: 480; Maximum vCPUs per virtual machine: 8; http://www.vmware.com/ap/products/vsphere-hypervisor/gettingstarted.html.
Original Publication : August 13, 2013
In my last post, I talked about the product-related aspects of delivering free backup for VMware vSphere (also called free ESXi or unlicensed ESXi.) Thought folks might be interested in how we went about announcing it.
First, the coverage has been outstanding! Here’s an incomplete list of just a few of the analysts, blogs, and others who wrote about what we’re offering:
- Storage Switzerland: VMworld 2013 Interview with Unitrends
- CRN: VMworld 2013: 20 Must-See Storage Offerings (Part 1) (8/28)
- eWeek: Unitrends Offers No-Cost, 4VM Backup for Free vSphere Version (8/28)
- The VAR Guy: VMworld 2013 Solutions Exchange Vendor Wrapup for VARs (8/28)
- Columbia Regional Business Report: Unitrends’ new backup product takes on Microsoft (8/27)
- DABCC.com: Unitrends Delivers Industry’s First Free Backup and Recovery Solution for Unlicensed Version of VMware vSphere Hypervisor (8/27)
- StorageReview.com: Unitrends Enterprise Backup Free Edition with Support for Free VMware vSphere Announced (8/27)
- Virtual-Strategy Magazine: Unitrends Delivers Industry’s First Free Backup and Recovery Solution for Unlicensed Version of VMware vSphere Hypervisor (8/27)
- Tom’s IT Pro: Unitrends Intros Free Backup, Recovery for vSphere Hypervisor (8/28)
- VirtualizationSoftware.com: Free Data Protection for Free VMware vSphere ESXi from Unitrends (8/28)
But it gets even more interesting. We actually won an award for best SMB product! Well, kind of. It turns out that at the last moment we didn’t receive it – because we didn’t have a booth at VMworld.
Why didn’t Unitrends have a booth at VMworld? The reason is pretty simple. We tend to watch every dollar we spend pretty carefully. Last year we got a booth, sent tons of people, gave away a motorcycle, and at the end of the day we weren’t thrilled with the results in terms of reaching people who were interested in backup.
So this year we tried something very, very different. We asked a person at Unitrends named Jenn Sipala to lead a guerrilla effort at VMworld centered around the idea of making people aware of a new offering we were planning (the Unitrends Enterprise Backup™ Free Edition product for free VMware vSphere.) Jenn led a cross-functional team including our corporate marketing group (led by Jenn Sullivan, our leader of marketing at Unitrends, with work by Katie Drucker and Kelly Lowe at VMworld, Tina Dussault on the web site, Paul Nashawaty in alliance/analyst marketing), our leader of business development Lee MacIllwinen, Mark Bloom and Bob Gagnon (channel), Tommy Phan (sales engineering), and our evangelist Maria Pressley. And of course this doesn’t include the models who helped us as well.
Wow! That’s a lot of folks and a lot of cross-functional coordination, huh? And I’ve got to tell you – we’re pleased with the results. Next year, I believe we’ll marry the two concepts and have a booth while we go guerrilla.
In the meantime, it’s incredibly gratifying to see the product get such glowing reviews. A lot of time we focus on the R&D – the developers – and we’ll do that another time here. But quite often marketing and sales and G&A (Teresa and Jake) and QA (Joe C.) and a lot of others are also doing heroic work – so a thank you to all.
It’s no doubt that VMware is one of the leaders in server virtualization. VMware vSphere Hypervisor, or ESXi, is a type-1 hypervisor that enables virtual machine or guest OS to run over a bare metal system. Major companies choose ESXi due its simplicity, reliability, and robustness. With such quality, VMware tends to cost us with high investment. But, when budget is a major constraint, we can consider using free ESXi in some areas of production and cut some expense. VMware ESXi is a free hypervisor from VMware. You can use just ESXi hypervisor without purchasing vCenter.
See also:Backup of ESXi Free, ESXi and vCenter with Iperius Backup
Before using a free version of ESXi hypervisor, we need to know its limitations. With the free version of ESXi we don’t get the vendor support and lost the ability to manage ESXi using vCenter. When you activate ESXi with free ESXi license you will not be able to add ESXi server to vCenter. There are also limitations like maximum 2 physical CPUs can be used and 8 vCPU per VM. However, the good thing is the free version of ESXi supports unlimited cores per CPU and unlimited physical memory. With those limitations in consideration, below are examples of how to leverage the use of free ESXi:
1. Patch management
One of the great examples is using ESXi as an isolated environment for patch testing and application piloting before deploying it to a production environment. We can clone our production servers using VMware Converter Standalone and set our free ESXi as the target to host the clones. Then we are free to do anything with the clones without causing any disruption to production. Note that free ESXi can still use snapshot function, so we can easily rollback any deployments if required.
2. Mini DR test
The main challenge of DR test is to synchronize changes between the primary site and DR site. With the free version of ESXi we can’t use replication feature from vCenter but we can once again trick it using VMware Converter. Although this is not a recommended way (as there is no official support or success guarantee from VMware when we do this), we can install VMware Converter on guest OS of a VM that we want to “replicate” to our ESXi free in DR site. Fire up the tools, select This local machine as the source and activate the option Synchronize changes, but untick the option the Perform final synchronization. Once we have the exact copy of the VM running on our DR site, we can run the tools on that VM and select Synchronize on the convert machine job ID.
3. Host production servers
Free version of ESXi is not designed for large host production servers. The way it can’t be managed by vCenter eventually will become inconvenience in terms of long-term operational and its future maintenance, but when we don’t have better options, we can still maximize the usage of free ESXi to host production servers. In addition to that, you can also use the help of 3rd party software to minimize the risk when the situation becomes more critical. One of the features of Iperius Backup VM is to support ESXi Free and enable you to set up scheduled backup of VMs in ESXi Free and restore it to the same or different ESXi server automatically.
4. CBT Backup support
Changed Block Tracking (CBT) is a VMware ESXi feature that helps perform incremental and differential backups. VMware Data Recovery uses this technology and so can developers of backup and recovery software. CBT Backup is also supported by third party applications such as Iperius Backup, and also for ESXi Free. Using Iperius Backup, you can protect your virtual machines with an high-efficiency incremental backup, that can save only the used space on virtual disks.
How to get ESXi free
You can register a free account at VMware site and download ESXi image in there. It is the same ESXi image that is used for the paid version with all features and functions are unlocked for 60 days.
After 60 days, we can continue using ESXi by activating ESXi free license. Enter the license using vSphere Client in Configuration tab -> Licensed Features -> Edit. Then select Assign a new license key to this host as shown below.
Click the button Enter Key and type the license number that you got on ESXi download page.
Is There A Free Version Of Vsphere
ESXi download page
How to get Iperius Backup
Iperius is probably the best software on the market to back up ESXi Free virtual machines. You can try it for free and then decide if order a commercial license. The good thing is that the license is perpetual, and allows to back up unlimited ESXi hosts and virtual machines that you can reach in the network.
Conclusion
Free Version Of Vsphere
Even with such limitations, using ESXi free is proven to be a nice alternative in enterprise level. With a little creativity and help from some 3rd party software, we can have functions that suit our needs. However, powerful features like vMotion, HA, Fault Tolerance, etc, are only available when ESXi is managed by vCenter. In this case, we must upgrade the free license to paid ESXi.
Vmware Esxi Free
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