ESXi and keeping it free to manage

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Ramos

Member
Mar 2, 2016
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So been banging my head against the wall a bit.
- ESXi is free in itself but to manage it with vCenter or vSphere client costs money. And there is no real alternative to those payclients.

Or is there free clients for ESXi admin?

And can I just setup what I need in 60 days and then run with a static ESXi until I need things to change and then get a new eval vCenter/vSphere client trial? (possibly on other/new account)

Do you guys pay or have it paid for you (work) or is there a free trick?
 

vl1969

Active Member
Feb 5, 2014
634
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is it for business or home?
What do you want to do with the setup?

Can you use an alternative solution, like xen, xen server, kvm, virtualbox etc.?

I personally bulding a setup on openmediavault and virtualbox. All is free and very nice for modrate home use.
 

Ramos

Member
Mar 2, 2016
68
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Home for training for work. But rig is private. I just wanted a Hypervisor lvl1 with little overhead.

Virtualbox is a HV lvl2 so if I pick that one, I'd rather go Win2k16 and the new Hyper-V so I can have the Windows Server services on top for cluster virtualization.

Xen server sounds interesting. I'll have a look into alternatives. Thanks.
 

NetWise

Active Member
Jun 29, 2012
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Edmonton, AB, Canada
Get a VMUG Advantage subscription with EVAL experience. Give you 6 sockets of most stuff for under $200/year. It's worth every penny.


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whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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Concur, VMUG Eval, as for free client use ESXi html5 vmware fling or vSphere html5 web client, else reload every 60 days if you want 'the good stuff'. Autodeploy can make things easier in this regard but you still have to reload VCSA (vCenter) every 60 days and backup/restore AutoDeploy config prior to env reset/reload.

ESXi Embedded Host Client
vSphere HTML5 Web Client
 

Marsh

Moderator
May 12, 2013
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@Ramos

To help, you'll need to explain what you want to do with your home lab.
To start, fat vClient is free to use, vSphere 6.0u2 have a build-in web server for management like vClient.

What is not free are the advance features that required vCenter to manage , VSAN . But you could install every 60 days.
If you plan ahead to learn auto-deploy and powercli , it would take few minutes to deploy a new lab in minutes.

Cloning vm template could be done via Veeam, or export to OVF file, or using powercli.
Cold vm migration could be done using Veeam, or import from OVF, or using powercli.
 

vl1969

Active Member
Feb 5, 2014
634
76
28
Home for training for work. But rig is private. I just wanted a Hypervisor lvl1 with little overhead.

Virtualbox is a HV lvl2 so if I pick that one, I'd rather go Win2k16 and the new Hyper-V so I can have the Windows Server services on top for cluster virtualization.

Xen server sounds interesting. I'll have a look into alternatives. Thanks.
How is picking virtualbox same as win2k16 hyperv?

First of all win2k12 hyperv is free and level 1 hypervisor. So if you can/want use windows do it.
If you have a win8 or win10 pc you havea ui free, sort of, what you missing with that setup is enterprise option like auto authenticarion of vm licence. That is on a fully paid licensed hyperv you can create windows server vn and auto authenticate and activate. Can not do that on free hyperv. Also free core setup only cli. No gui of any kind. But you can supplement it with a win8 or 10 pc and hyperv manager on it.
 

RTM

Well-Known Member
Jan 26, 2014
956
359
63
vSphere client costs money
Unless something has changed recently, vSphere client is free.
Although it is Windows only and kind of meh, so finding something different might not be such a bad idea.
 

sullivan

New Member
Mar 27, 2016
25
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3
I've read a number of times that a VMUG subscription provides for "6 sockets".

However I believe I've also seen this described in some places as "3 nodes".

Can anyone clarify what this means? Will a VMUG subscription allow for 6x
single-socket systems? Will it allow any mix of single and dual-socket servers
up to 6x sockets? Or is the restriction (nodes <= 3) AND (sockets <= 6)?

Get a VMUG Advantage subscription with EVAL experience. Give you 6 sockets of most stuff for under $200/year. It's worth every penny.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
3,346
598
113
Another not exactly free option to change settings you can't normally easily with the free tools is to use VMware workstation to create and modify VM's with advanced features and just import to your ESXi host.