HP ML110G6 dual boot: VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

I have been working with VMware products for many years. Recently, I decided to extend my home lab and bought a HP ML 110 G6 server . These HP servers are a good choice for a home lab, they have the look and feel of the enterprise stuff, are affordable and are pretty able to run VMware ESXi (although the compatibility of the G5 was better…).

VMware ESXi is the future, I found this great blogpost,  Installing VMware ESXi 4.0 on a USB Memory Stick “The Official Way” , plugged a memory stick in the internal USB connector, installed ESXi, created a local VMFS partition and started creating VM’s.

I think one has to be independent and it is always good to know how other vendors (especially in the field of Virtualization are doing). And the best way is to download and install, in my case, first on my list is Microsoft Hyper-V server 2008 R2. And it would be nice to have both on the same hardware, just like in the old days with a dual boot Windows/Linux PC…

VMware, Versions, Updates and Builds

Last Update: May, 29th 2011.

Just an example, a customer has VMware Data Recovery version 1.1. However, you experience that version 1.1 is not always doing the job as expected and consider upgrading to the latest version 1.2. The release notes tells you that VMware Data Recovery 1.2 can be used with VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 2 or vSphere 4.1. First you check the ESX host, which reports: ESX 4.0.0 Build 208167 and you have no idea, whether the ESX host is ESX 4.0, 4.0 Update 1 or Update 2.

Another useful VMware document, vSphere Software Compatibility Guide is entirely based on the Version and Update strategy.

I know, a lot of blogposts have been dedicated to this subject. I have once seen an excellent overview of all VMware products, versions, updates and build. Unfortunately I can’t retrieve it. If anyone knows what I mean, please respond.

VMware, keep your environment up-to-date

VMware offers several tools to maintain your virtual environment. Sometimes it is hard to determine which tool is the best choice to do the job. In this post an overview of available tools and other useful information about updating and upgrading. So if you want to know the difference between the updatemanager, vihostupdate, esxupdate or esxupgrade? Please read on.