ESX Server is now also available as ESX Server 3i, offering all the same functionality but with a thin 32 MB footprint that provides unparalleled security and reliability, while integration as server firmware makes deployment fast and easy. ESX Server 3i will soon be available integrated in server systems. It is now available for purchase as a standalone hard drive install.

Start Achieving the Benefits of Virtualization

ESX Server 3 and ESX Server 3i are “bare metal” hypervisors that partition physical servers in multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine represents a complete system, with processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS. Multiple virtual machines can share physical resources and run side by side on the same server. Operating systems and applications can run unmodified in virtual machines. ESX Server 3 and ESX Server 3i form the robust foundation of the VMware Infrastructure 3 suite. ESX Server 3 and ESX Server 3i are included in all VMware Infrastructure editions.

Benefits of Virtualization:

• Realize production server consolidation and containment by running software applications on fewer servers.
• Provide advanced business continuity protection at lower cost and deliver high availability for critical applications.
• Streamline software test and development by consolidating disparate development, testing, and staging environments with multiple operating systems on the same hardware.
• Re-host legacy applications on new hardware for improved reliability.

Leverage the Most Advanced and Production-Proven Hypervisor

Virtualize even the most resource-intensive applications with advanced resource management, high availability and security features.

• Virtualize mission critical applications with the hypervisor that sets the industry standard for reliability. Instances of ESX Server have been running in production customer environments for more than 3 years without a second of downtime.
• Leverage the most advanced hypervisor capabilities that result from a decade of pioneering research and development in virtualization.
• Get from server boot to running virtual machines in a few minutes with ESX Server 3i embedded in server systems.
• Virtualize any environment, from the corporate data center to the branch office, with a compatibility list that includes more than 200 server and storage systems. Run unmodified Windows, Linux, Solaris, and NetWare operating systems in virtual machines.
• Leverage high performance shared storage for greater manageability, flexibility and availability with VMware VMFS – a high performance cluster file system optimized for virtual environments.
• Run even the most resource intensive enterprise applications in virtual machines with expanded processor, memory and storage limits. Enable a single virtual machine to use up to four physical processors with VMware Virtual SMP.
• Optimize virtual machine resource allocation with minimum, maximum and proportional resource sharing for CPU, memory, disk and network bandwidth.
• Achieve data center-class high availability with shared storage, SAN transparency, built-in storage access multipathing and support for Microsoft Clustering Services.
• Enhance IT infrastructure security with LUN zoning and masking, VLAN traffic tagging and filtering, and enforcing security at the Ethernet layer.