On Saturday, December 18, 2010 04:19:25 am Gerhard Schneider wrote: > The problem with VMWare Server is that it is a discontinued product for > longer time and they don't provide us with a suitable replacement. VMware wants more people to get hooked on vSphere, so their 'suggested' VMware GSX^H^H^HServer replacement is vSphere Hypervisor, aka ESXi Free Edition. If you have suitable hardware you will get better performance with ESXi, but to get any of the more advanced functionality will require $$$ and vCenter Server. I have been looking at transitioning from VI3 (vCenter Server 2.5 and ESX 3.5) to something else; the price of vSphere 4 is simply too large to justify, and, while I have a valid license for vCenter Server Standard 4, I don't for ESX4 (it is a long story, and involves some rather precise timing of a difference in purchase and support dates for our original VI3 purchase, done in two phases). If I had a valid license for the full vSphere 4, I'm still not sure I'd run it, as the vCenter Server hardware requirements are steep. So I'm very seriously considering transitioning from VI3 to CentOS 6 KVM; for my situation it might be doable, but I have a lot to learn about KVM before I can think about it. Well, and CentOS 6 has to be out, too. I use many of the more advanced VI3 features, including vMotion, that means I really have to be careful. I'd want to cluster the hosts and have shared storage on my three onsite EMC Clariions. I'd like to 'RAID' the shared storage between two Clariions, actually, which ESX won't do, AFAIK. So a learning curve is up ahead Q1 or Q2 2011.....