This particular topic comes up from time to time in discussions. Yes it is OK to run Exchange on VMware, and Exchange 2007 on VMware is a supported configuration… for more info, follow the links below:

The Podcast – Wednesday, Jan 14, for another round of the VMware Communities Roundtable podcast

The Webinar – Jan 15: Exchange 2007 on VMware: Technical Case Study.

The White Paper – Deploying Exchange Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure: A VMware Internal Case Study

The original post from VMware

So the big news last week was that VMware decided it’s time to rename VMware Virtual Infrastructure (or VI as the peeps on the street are calling it these days) to VMware vSphere. The current version seems to be staying on the VI title and the next version will move to this odd naming structure.

So far they’ve renamed a LOT of their products, Virtual Center became vCenter Server, VDI became VMware View, and many of the other DC level products moved into the VMware vCenter group.

So far some of the theories on why oh why VMware decided to confuse us all with renaming everything (some marketing itch no doubt) seem to surround brand protection and separating the name from other vendors now in the same space (Hyper-V and Hypervisor for example)

Pretty much everyone has blogged about it so far, so we’re the last on the boat, but Cody’s not here and I’m getting old.

Patrick

VMware has recently added a searchable tool for their HCL (Hardware Compatibility List). This tool makes it much easier to search for any hardware in question. Also, you can export the results into a spreadsheet if needed:

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

The PDF version of the compatibility guides are still available (for now?) under the “Other Documents”. I found them by searching for “3.5″ or “ESX”.

If you are enable to find your hardware in the list, there is a link to the Community Support HW/SW page at the bottom of the search page.

While there may be a Santa Claus Virginia, and he brought you ESXi for free, he didn’t bring you Serial Port Access. This isn’t because after several hundreds of years of delivering toys to little girls and boy’s has got him scrooged out, it’s because ESXi has a footprint that is all of 32mb in size, and some things had to go. VMware is continually working with partners and solutions providers to provide other means of accessing that which you’d typically use serial for anyways.

For further reading, here is the KB article that backs that up.

From the Guest Install Guide blog @ VMware.

These are the changes or updates made to the Guest Operating System Installation Guide since it was last published:

• Added support for 32-bit NetWare 6.5 Server, Support Pack 8 on ESX Server 3.0.2, 3.0.3, and 3.5 Update 3. See “NetWare 6.5 Server” on page 302.

• Added support for Novell Open Enterprise Server 2, Support Pack 1 with 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Service Pack 2 on ESX Server 3.0.2, 3.0.3, and 3.5 Update 3. See “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10” on page 180. Also added support for Novell Open Enterprise Server 2, Support Pack 1 with 32-bit NetWare 6.5 Server, Support Pack 8 on ESX Server 3.0.2, 3.0.3, and 3.5 Update 3. See “NetWare 6.5 Server” on page 302.

PDF: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf

HTML: http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/

This is actually a nice VMware common support issue matrix put together by VMwarewolf. Click the link or the picture, extract the zip, open the resulting html in your browser, and go!

Download the Zip.

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