[Info-vax] VMWARE/ESXi Linux

[Robert A. Brooks]

On 11/27/2024 4:33 PM, David Turner wrote:
> I keep being told that VMWARE is not an OS in itself.
> But it is... based on Ubuntu Kernel....  stripped down but still Linux
> 
> So basically another layer to fail before VMS loads. Wonder why people are not 
> using the real Alpha or Integrity as cheap as they are


For many reasons, but foremost among them is that the lords of the datacenter 
have spoken -- they don't want strange, proprietary hardware.

Independent of whatever type of hypervisor ESXi is, we find it to be rock-solid 
hosting our array of testing, development, and production systems.

We also find our KVM-based hypervisors to be solid as well.

As Reagan stated earlier today, VirtualBox is used at VSI in various places, and
works well for many folks, primarily for development.  While it's not listed as
a supported hypervisor by VSI, we make sure that we don't break anything on 
VirtualBox when we're making a fix for something to work (or work better) on KVM 
or ESXi.

While I used VirtualBox on CentOS early on in the port, I now use ESXi 
exclusively, primarily because I prefer direct fibre channel access to my SAN.

My ESXi server (Proliant DL380 Gen10) goes months without a reboot, which is 
usually to install new firmware on the hardware.  We make sure that we always
test the latest fibre HBA firmware ASAP.

Yeah, MSCP-served volumes by IA64 and Alpha work (and I still use it for some 
devices), but my cluster provides a lot of testing capability where direct fibre 
access is important.

-- 
                    --- Rob