The addition of Capacity Planner and Converter to VirtualCenter 2.5, in the form of the wizard-driven Guided Consolidation tool, is also quite notable. Capacity Planner, which has been something of a hidden product from VMware, is now moving to the forefront. With Guided Consolidation, VirtualCenter can be used to monitor any number of physical servers for a period of time, then produce reports on how well they will integrate into the virtual infrastructure. Once those decisions have been made, the P2V migration can be managed directly from VirtualCenter using VMware's converters. This combination is sure to be a hit with shops that are just starting their virtualization implementations, but may also hurt several third-party P2V companies such as Leostream and PlateSpin. Again, in the beta code, these tools were functional, but didn't appear to be fully realized yet.

The Bottom Line VMware Infrastructure 3 with ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 VMware, vmware.com Beta   Cost: $995 per pair of processors for Foundation edition; $2,995 per pair of processors for Standard edition; $5,750 per pair of processors for Enterprise Edition, including Consolidated Backup, Update Manager, High Availability, VMotion, Storage VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler, and Distributed Power Management. Platforms: ESX Server runs on Intel- and AMD-based hardware and supports Windows, Linux, Solaris, and other major operating systems as guests; introduces support for paravirtualized Linux guests Bottom Line: VMware's ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 release adds several key management features to the leading server virtualization platform. Waiting in the wings is a new embedded version of the ESX hypervisor, which will obviate the need for local disks in a VMware host server. The beta releases have been relatively buggy, and more than a few host crashes and puzzling errors were seen in the lab. But if those problems are ironed out in the production release, the new features will definitely be a hit with customers. About our Reviews and Scoring Methodology

Also new is Distributed Power Management, which puts a green twist on automated load balancing. Working in concert with Distributed Resource Scheduler, this can be used to further reduce power and cooling costs in certain infrastructures. For instance, in a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure scenario, if desktop VMs typically become dormant after business hours, it would be possible to shut down many of those VMs, migrate others to ESX hosts with low utilization, and then power down the ESX hosts that won't be needed until load ramps back up in the morning.

Color my hypervisor
One addition to the core platform is coming in the wake of the VI3 update, at a date VMware has not yet announced. Rather confusingly named V3i, or VMware ESX Server 3i, this is the embedded version of ESX Server, designed to be run from a USB flash drive or a CompactFlash card. Many server manufacturers have been integrating internal USB headers or CompactFlash slots in their servers for purposes just like this. V3i removes the need for ESX hosts to have local disks, further hardening them against hardware failure. However, make no mistake – V3i is nothing like the current ESX server. It's completely new and removes the ability for any direct management of ESX hosts. There's no Linux base in V3i, so it's not possible to SSH into a V3i host or apply any third-party packages. This may make it a nonstarter with some advanced VMware shops, but for those running more vanilla setups, V3i might be the way to go. In order to alleviate concerns regarding direct host management and scripting, VMware is releasing a kind of CLI for V3i hosts. Basically a Perl wrapper around direct API calls to the hosts, it serves the same purpose as a true CLI, but it's not running on the host itself.

In my tests of the beta code, V3i seemed to be the most fragile component. If VMware aims to release V3i shortly after yesterday's launch, then it definitely has some work to do in the interim. I had several problems managing and using V3i hosts on supported hardware such as the Dell PowerEdge 2950. VMware's equivalent of the Windows Blue Screen of Death is a Purple Screen of Death, and I saw that many times while testing the beta.

Apparently there was some discussion within VMware regarding whether to release VMware Infrastructure 3 with ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 as VI3.1. Given the scope of the new features, dubbing it a "dot-five" release was the right choice, and there aren't enough core functionality feature additions to warrant a push to VI4. But hey, what's wrong with a short and simple "VI3.5"? And how about coming up with different terminology to denote the embedded hypervisor? It's already hard enough to explain VI3, ESX 3.5, and VirtualCenter 2.5 to the uninitiated. Adding V3i (or V3.5i) to the mix almost commands the eyes to glaze over in a complete lack of understanding.

Whatever it's called, VMware has a lot riding on this release, not the least of which is the company's outstanding track record of shipping no software before its time. If the released code is significantly more stable than the beta, it will undoubtedly be a winner.