Alternatives to ESXI (if I have no choice)

[jantypas]

This should be lively discussion...  let me get a couple of things out of the way....

• I've been with VMWare products for a LONG time, back when VMWare was VMWare, not EMC, not Dell.
• I have workstation pro, fusion, ESXI etc.  I like them.
• What I do not have, is budget for VSphere and friends, especially under the new licensing.

So the question is this.  Given ESXI 7's tactics that say hardware is too old to run ESXI, buy a new server, and server budgets and software budgets are not the same, though VMWare doesn't seem to know this.... consider the scenario. 

2 ESXI servers

     12 core / 64GB RAM

     16 core, 128GB RAM

      85% of the time, VMs are linux

      10% of the time, VMs are BBD, pfSense, etc.

        5% at best, Windows 10 Pro

If you could not use ESXI or any other VMWare product, what would you load these servers with?  What about the workstation component?  Are we talking Xen, Docket, what?

I don't want to leave VMWare, everything works right now, but financials may make the choice for me.

[continuum]

Whats wrong with the free ESXi ?

[IRIX201110141]

How does effect new vSphere licensing your server? Again... new licensing comes into the game with 32 core per CPU which means 64 phys. cores in a 2s server.

vSphere essentials starts at 470 + 62,- EUR and i have to say sorry when a company cannot effort it you may think about your business.  This is totally different for a private person of course! Are you a private? Whats about VMUG Adv. or Free ESXi?

Regards,

Joerg