[CentOS] Virtualization platform choice

>   You can boot ESXi from a 
>small CF card, as once its booted, it doesn't touch the boot device at all.

Yes it does, there are cron jobs for config backups etc.
How does it remember config changes in a non-stateless deployment?

~ # cat /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
#syntax : minute hour day month dayofweek command
01 01 * * * /sbin/tmpwatch.sh
01 * * * * /sbin/auto-backup.sh #first minute of every hour (run every hour)