Cost of VM software?

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paulwatson5

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Feb 8, 2014
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Hi,

I'm pretty new to virtualisation but build a server in my garage which is going to be a test server and i want to install ESXi and run a few vm's.

Is ESXi free or just a free trial?
I then need to access my server from a laptop in my house, do i use VM Sphere for this? Is this also free or a paid service?

Any help would be much appreciated or recommend any software which is free.

Thanks
 
There is a free version of ESXi, it's the same install as the full version but you'll get limited functionality with the free version. For home use the free version is more than acceptable. You can find all of this information on VMware's website.

http://www.vmware.com/

https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/gettingstarted

To access the ESXi server you can use the vSphere client which is also free to use with ESXi.
 
Last edited:
Also keep in mind that ESXi isn't the only thing on the block. Proxmox comes to mind as another free alternative if ESXi doesn't do what you want or won't run on your hardware.
 
For a basic server/client setup. Here’s what you’ll need:

CPU/Motherboard that support virtualization (VT-x) and direct I/O (VT-d). VT-d allow you to give the guest virtual machine direct access to the hardware. It’s important to pass-through the VGA cards and HBA card for all-in-one server setup. I recommend VT-d because it will improve your remote desktop experience tremendously with GPU pass-through. Basically, you’ll need a Xeon processor and motherboard that has Intel server chipset. A X5650 setup on a Tyan or Supermicron motherboard is a good starting point.

Cheapest video card that support pass-through w/o any trick/issue is the Quadro 4000 card (around $150 on ebay).

You’ll also need a USB stick to install ESXi on. An SSD is recommended for ESXi datastore (this is where you keep your virtual machine files). You’ll need memories, the more the better.

Those are the hardware I recommend to make your experience pleasant.

On the software you’ll need:
+ VMware vShere Hypervisor ESXi -- free. Use the free license, you won’t need anything more than this until your get into more than 2 ESXi hosts.

+ VMware vShere Client – free.

Those are the minimum, I also recommend:

+ VMware view agent -- free

+ VMware view agent direct connection – free

+ VMware Horizon view client – free

Step:

On your server:
+ Install ESXi on a USB stick (there are ways to install ESXi on a USB stick on using your laptop)
On your laptop (client):

+ Install VMware vShere Client

+ Log onto the server via vShere Client and create a datastore on the SSD

+ Within the vShere client interface, go to configuration/datastore, right click datastore and “browse datastore” and upload your windows7 installation ISO file.

+ Create VM machine, use the installation ISO for the DVD. Install Win7 as a guest.

+ Within the vShere client interface, select the “Summary” tab, power on the VM guest then “open console” so that you can see the progress.

+ On the guest machine, install view-agent and view-agent-direct-connection

On your laptop:

Install VMware horizon view client. Now use the view client to remote logon to the guest Win7 machine on your server.

From this point on, treat your guest machine as a physical machine. You can access it with RPD as you wish. From within your LAN, the different between the 2 are more that big a deal. It’s when you access the gest from outside your LAN, then horizon view client is superior (with its PCoIP protocol)

After everything is working well. You can begin to setup pass-through for the GPU (Quadro 4000 card).
 
Thank you all so much for your input, its EXACTALY what i needed!!

My ESXi server is as follows (so far)

Supermicro X8STI Motherboard
http://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/X58/X8STi.cfm

Quad Xeon E5530 CPU
4GB DDR3 (Can take up to 24GB which will be doing soon but Supermicro boards are very picky!!)

The gfx is onboard so will look out for a new card.

I have a few 8 and 16gb sandisk USB sticks for boot drives and i have a couple of 64GB SSD drives to get me setup.

Will my board and cpu be ok to start out with?
 
paulwatson5 said:
ESXi does need and cant use it?? Sorry I cant make sense of that. Can you elaborate please?
Click to expand...

a graphics card in an ESX host is useless really. If you have onboard, that all you really need. No need to waste money on a graphics card unless you going to actually use it for VDI ect...
 
I hate to hijack but it does pertain to the cost of running vms and all.

How necessary is esxi 6.0 and the web interface?

I recently installed 6.0 to start playing with virtualization at home but when I started creating VM's the Vsphere Client would yell at me about not being able to edit all of the hardware settings unless I was using the web client. This web client I guess requires vsphere server which is not free.

So I guess how limited am I if I run 6.0 vs running an older esxi version that you don't need the web client to edit hardware settings?
 
ChedWick said:
I hate to hijack but it does pertain to the cost of running vms and all.

How necessary is esxi 6.0 and the web interface?

I recently installed 6.0 to start playing with virtualization at home but when I started creating VM's the Vsphere Client would yell at me about not being able to edit all of the hardware settings unless I was using the web client. This web client I guess requires vsphere server which is not free.

So I guess how limited am I if I run 6.0 vs running an older esxi version that you don't need the web client to edit hardware settings?
Click to expand...

You can create VMs using the older feature set. You can't use 6.0's features, but for most home users, you don't really need it. You can, as you've seen, still edit the settings below 6.0 with the client.
 
FnordMan said:
Also keep in mind that ESXi isn't the only thing on the block. Proxmox comes to mind as another free alternative if ESXi doesn't do what you want or won't run on your hardware.
Click to expand...

There is also XenServer by Citrix and Hyper-V from Microsoft that are solid alternatives.

Hyper-V is scary easy to setup in newer versions of windows as it is just a role/feature you can add to an existing install. Though if you are going to get serious, I would recommend being more planful in how you buildout the host so it does not have a lot of overhead.

Input on the 3 as follows for home use (I have used all 3 for home use and most recently run two Hyper-V hosts).

- VMWare - Best enterprise adoption, the majority player in virtualization. Good for both linux/windows guests. Have their own methodology to learn for working with the hosts/software arch/etc. Free offering is ok. (lots of limits though getting better)

-XenServer - A smaller player, but still very mature. Free offering is quite robust. Good for both linux/windows guests. Have their own methodology to learn for working with the hosts/software arch/etc. and not as much community support as you will find with VMWare (though still quite a bit). I have found some of their guest VM/snapshot mgmt. to work great until you have an issue, it can be a pain to work with from the command line if something does not come up right.

-Hyper-V - If you are familiar with Windows, you will feel right at home. Guest VMs sit on a normal file system. Excellent for Windows guests, so-so for linux. Negative is you can be lulled into bad architecture and issues since the host just runs windows. It literally is a windows machine that you add a role to for hyper-v.


I like Hyper-V as my guest VMs are mostly Windows, I am familiar with the file mgmt, and being a normal windows server makes it easy for hardware setup/etc. for me. As far as speed, I have found very little difference between the 3 options all on the same hardware with the same guests. If anything, Hyper-V runs the best with the Windows guests. Great integration as to be expected.
 
I'd throw VirtualBox into the mix as well. Simple as simple can be and I've found it the quickest of the solutions I've tried (though I admit I haven't fooled with exsi in quite some time). Also, if you need any USB devices from the host I found it MUCH better than the limited support on Hyper-V. You will need a OS to host this though.
 
Would strongly sugest Hyper-V. That said what are your goals of this lab? Are you employed in IT? What does your work use for virtualization? Vmware cerification can be quit costly compared to MS offerings.
Hyper-V is free, windows server with the hyper-v role is not. Initial config of hyper-v can be intimidating since its all comand line. If your doing MS certs you will need to be good with powershell and server core/minwin, might as well start from the ground up. Lots of new stuff coming to the windows server world in 2016. pm me if you want to know more.
 
Also hyper-v has storage spaces/disk pooling (software raid). You don't need a hardware raid controller and you can avoid going into bios to reconfigure your raid arrays.
 
for hardware:
have you already bought the components you listed?

I love the x58 intel chips, they make awesome virtual hosts.
Love supermicro not aware of memory issues you mention.
you do not need xenon and ecc ram, especialy if you are doing a single socket motherboard.
I would try to get a dual socket mobo.
check ebay for dell c1100. the hardware to dollar/pound ratio will shock you. $259 usd for 2x quad core cpu and 48gb of ram( 24 per cpu) you will need an adapter to turn the 3.5" dell drive trays to 2.5" for your ssd.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/201473588167?ul_noapp=true&ul_ref=http%253A%252F%252Frover.ebay.com%252Frover%252F1%252F711-117182-37290-0%252F2%253Fmtid%253D1588%2526kwid%253D1%2526crlp%253D53601919689_324272%2526itemid%253D201473588167%2526targetid%253D147252553209%2526rpc%253D0.16%2526rpc_upld_id%253D59826%2526rlsatarget%253Dpla-147252553209%2526device%253Dm%2526mpre%253Dhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.ebay.com%25252Fulk%25252Fitm%25252Flike%25252F201473588167%25253Flpid%25253D82%252526chn%25253Dps%2526adtype%253Dpla%2526loc%253D9007845%2526poi%253D9007828%2526campaignid%253D239125209%2526adgroupid%253D14978428809%2526gclid%253DCj0KEQiAnJqzBRCW0rGWnKnckOIBEiQA6qDBavIZOSzIy6NtvzvzIb1bcX-Nqwg5iMuAo9K-EYvdzNoaAtIk8P8HAQ%2526srcrot%253D711-117182-37290-0%2526rvr_id%253D946292590256&chn=ps&lpid=82
 
dsystem said:
for hardware:
have you already bought the components you listed?

I love the x58 intel chips, they make awesome virtual hosts.
Love supermicro not aware of memory issues you mention.
you do not need xenon and ecc ram, especialy if you are doing a single socket motherboard.
I would try to get a dual socket mobo.
check ebay for dell c1100. the hardware to dollar/pound ratio will shock you. $259 usd for 2x quad core cpu and 48gb of ram( 24 per cpu) you will need an adapter to turn the 3.5" dell drive trays to 2.5" for your ssd.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/201473...7290-0%26rvr_id%3D946292590256&chn=ps&lpid=82
Click to expand...


If you don't want 1U there's a couple 2U variations a little more expensive then the Dell T5500 if you want it in workstation format. I'm currently planning my build now. I'm considering T5500 with dual Hex
 
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ChedWick said:
I hate to hijack but it does pertain to the cost of running vms and all.

How necessary is esxi 6.0 and the web interface?

I recently installed 6.0 to start playing with virtualization at home but when I started creating VM's the Vsphere Client would yell at me about not being able to edit all of the hardware settings unless I was using the web client. This web client I guess requires vsphere server which is not free.

So I guess how limited am I if I run 6.0 vs running an older esxi version that you don't need the web client to edit hardware settings?
Click to expand...
create vms using hardware version 9 or below
 
This post should be a sticky!

Thanks a bunch. Made more sense than hours of reading online!

nk215 said:
For a basic server/client setup. Here’s what you’ll need:

CPU/Motherboard that support virtualization (VT-x) and direct I/O (VT-d). VT-d allow you to give the guest virtual machine direct access to the hardware. It’s important to pass-through the VGA cards and HBA card for all-in-one server setup. I recommend VT-d because it will improve your remote desktop experience tremendously with GPU pass-through. Basically, you’ll need a Xeon processor and motherboard that has Intel server chipset. A X5650 setup on a Tyan or Supermicron motherboard is a good starting point.

Cheapest video card that support pass-through w/o any trick/issue is the Quadro 4000 card (around $150 on ebay).

You’ll also need a USB stick to install ESXi on. An SSD is recommended for ESXi datastore (this is where you keep your virtual machine files). You’ll need memories, the more the better.

Those are the hardware I recommend to make your experience pleasant.

On the software you’ll need:
+ VMware vShere Hypervisor ESXi -- free. Use the free license, you won’t need anything more than this until your get into more than 2 ESXi hosts.

+ VMware vShere Client – free.

Those are the minimum, I also recommend:

+ VMware view agent -- free

+ VMware view agent direct connection – free

+ VMware Horizon view client – free

Step:

On your server:
+ Install ESXi on a USB stick (there are ways to install ESXi on a USB stick on using your laptop)
On your laptop (client):

+ Install VMware vShere Client

+ Log onto the server via vShere Client and create a datastore on the SSD

+ Within the vShere client interface, go to configuration/datastore, right click datastore and “browse datastore” and upload your windows7 installation ISO file.

+ Create VM machine, use the installation ISO for the DVD. Install Win7 as a guest.

+ Within the vShere client interface, select the “Summary” tab, power on the VM guest then “open console” so that you can see the progress.

+ On the guest machine, install view-agent and view-agent-direct-connection

On your laptop:

Install VMware horizon view client. Now use the view client to remote logon to the guest Win7 machine on your server.

From this point on, treat your guest machine as a physical machine. You can access it with RPD as you wish. From within your LAN, the different between the 2 are more that big a deal. It’s when you access the gest from outside your LAN, then horizon view client is superior (with its PCoIP protocol)

After everything is working well. You can begin to setup pass-through for the GPU (Quadro 4000 card).
Click to expand...
 
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