On 12/17/09 2:29 PM, nick hatch wrote:
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Daryl G. Jurbala <daryl at introspect.net <mailto:daryl at introspect.net>> wrote:
The "free version" (ESXi/vSphere) is identical to the version you pay for, minus the manageability and failover/redundancy features. Are you talking about the nearly defunct VMWare server that runs on top of a base OS?
I've certainly noticed network latency issues on ESXi when system I/O increases. (Hundreds of ms jitter.) I figured this was the same with ESX as well, but there might be architectural differences between the two platforms which would make a difference.
Or, maybe there's something else going on. Many ESXi users do use the local datastores, so maybe that's where the "enterprise has less timing issues" perception comes from -- if you're paying for licensing, you're probably using a SAN and vice versa. If using local datastores affects network I/O, "enterprise" users might sidestep this issue entirely.
I've never used ESXi, so I can't address it at all. Presumably it's the same kernel as ESX/VI3, but without actually trying it I can't say anything about it. Our server cluster consists of Dell 1850 blades with the ESX OS stored locally (36GB 15k RAID 1 on a dedicated controller) and the VMs on an EMC iSCSI SAN. Running on local SATA storage is far more demanding and wasteful of resources. -- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003 Advanced phone services simplified