Minimum Hardware requirements for Esxi 5 installation

[usmanjamil]

Hello all

I'm new to VMWare and working on an application that automates the virtualization tasks. I wanted to know the minimum hardware requirement for a server on which ESXi 5 could be installed and I could use it for my development purpose. I dont need a server for production purpose, its just for development of an application on it so need to keep the budget to minimum.

The set of use cases that I'll be working on in my application are

1. virtual machine creation/editing

2. virtual disk management (add/update/resize/inflate/shrink etc)

3. virtual network card and IP address management on guest OS of virtual machines.

4. Snapshots

I've tried it with a regular desktop machine (for development purpose) containing Intel Core I3 2100 series with VT enabled in BIOS, 500 GB Sata HD, 8 GB DDR 3 Ram and gigabit network card, but the esxi installation gave error. Though I've been able to successfully install and execute all use cases of Microsoft Hypre V on the same machine, but this VMWare ESXi is not working with that.

Any help is highly appreciated.

Regards

Usman Jamil

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

Minimum Hardware requirement for

ESXi 5.0

64-bit Processor

• ESXi 5.0 installs and run only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.
• ESXi 5.0 requires a host machine with at least two cores.
• ESXi 5.0 supports only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions.
• Known 64-bit processors:
  
  
  • All AMD Opteron processors
  • All Intel Xeon 3000/3200, 3100/3300, 5100/5300, 5200/5400, 5500/5600,  7100/7300, 7200/7400, and 7500 processors

RAM

• 2GB RAM minimum.

Network Adapters

One or more Gigabit or 10Gb Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported  network adapter models, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

SCSI Adapter, Fibre Channel Adapter or Internal RAID  Controller

Any combination of one or more of the following controllers:

• Basic SCSI controllers. Adaptec Ultra-160 or Ultra-320, LSI Logic  Fusion-MPT, or most NCR/Symbios SCSI.
• RAID controllers. Dell PERC (Adaptec RAID or LSI MegaRAID), HP Smart Array  RAID, or IBM (Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.

Installation and Storage

• SCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the  virtual machines.
• For Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or  supported on-board SATA controllers. SATA disks will be considered remote, not  local. These disks will not be used as a scratch partition by default because  they are seen as remote.

ESXi 5.0 supports installing on and booting from the following  storage systems:

• SATA disk drives. SATA disk drives connected behind supported SAS  controllers or supported on-board
• SATA controllers. Supported SAS controllers include:
  
  
  • LSI1068E (LSISAS3442E)
  • LSI1068 (SAS 5)
  • IBM ServeRAID 8K SAS controller
  • Smart Array P400/256 controller
  • Dell PERC 5.0.1 controller
    
    
• Supported on-board SATA include:
  
  
  • Intel ICH9
  • NVIDIA MCP55
  • ServerWorks HT1000
    
    
• Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives. Supported for installing ESXi 5.0  and for storing virtual machines on VMFS partitions.
• Dedicated SAN disk on Fibre Channel or iSCSI
• USB devices. Supported for installing ESXi 5.0. For a list of supported USB  devices, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Make sure your hardware is compliant by referring to the Hardware Compatibility Guide.

For additional information, see vSphere Installation and Setup 5.0.

[Mauro Bonder]

FYI - http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-installation-setup-guide.pdf

[aravinds3107]

Welcome to the Community..

I assume you have tried installing the ESXi on your desktop directly. ESXi is bare metal hypervisor and it will installed only supported list of hardwares.

Check HCL here

but the esxi installation gave error.

Provide the error message which you are getting while installing ESXi 5.0

minimum hardware requirement for a server on which ESXi 5 could be  installed and I could use it for my development purpose. I dont need a  server for production purpose, its just for development of an  application on it so need to keep the budget to minimum.

As you are using only for development purpose. You can install VMware Workstation 8 on your desktop and install ESXi on top of it and run VM's on it or you can VM's on VMware Workstation

[usmanjamil]

Thanks aravinds for your reply. The error that I got on installation was related to network adapter, then after changing the network adapter, it turned out to be related to CPU not supported. Anyway I ran a cpu identification utility too and found out that even the best of the servers in my collection has Intel Xeon 3430 series on it which does not support 64 bit VMWare and EVC mode as shown in the following snapshots.

http://saastechnologies.com/hcdev/snapshot1.png

http://saastechnologies.com/hcdev/snapshot2.png

The second option that you mentioned i.e. to install a VMWare Workstation 8.0 and install ESXi on top of it, sounds a workable solution to me if its possible. Let me know if it goes like this

1. Install VMWare Workstation 8.0 on any Desktop (Lets say my intel Xeon 3430 server having Windows 2008 Server installed on it)

2. Install VSphere SDK on it and code all my use cases

If this is so, will the same code work on ESXi baremetal installation too as that is what I'm targetting my application to run with.

Regards

Usman Jamil

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Do you have VT enable in the BIOS of the host with the 3430? If this is the CPU then it has VT-x support - http://ark.intel.com/products/42927/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X3430-(8M-Cache-2_40-GHz) and if enabled in the BIOS the line should display as support 64-bit vmware: yes.

[usmanjamil]

Hello Dave

You are correct. I was running the CPU identification utility on a HyperV virtual machine running on that XEON server thinking that the virtualized CPU will have same capabilities. Anyway I tested it on the physical server and here's the result of this test.

http://saastechnologies.com/hcdev/snapshot3.jpg

Then I gave the Esxi installation CD a test run on this server and it took me to this screen without any error. I didnt proceed any further since I had not taken a backup of hard disk yet. But just wanted to ask that does this screen gurantee that this machine is Esxi 5 compatible, or there are still chances that it will fail on any thing ahead. I know that the answer lies in just continuing further in installation, but since its a very tedious task backing up all of the data (hyper-V virtual machines) and testing this hard disk, so just asking you experts to avoid the hassle.

http://saastechnologies.com/hcdev/snapshot4.jpg (Sorry for distorted image quality, using my mobile camera to take pictures, hope you can read it)

Thanks for your help

Regards

Usman Jamil

[aravinds3107]

To me it looks fine you should be able to proceed with installation..

[usmanjamil]

Ok here's the update. I tried it and the installation went smooth. After successful installation, I took the installation CD out and rebooted the server as instructed and got following error

Fatal error: 6 (buffer too small)

The screenshot is attached. Any idea if this is a common error and there's a common resolution to it, or is there still a possibility of hardware incompatibility.

Regards

Usman Jamil

[milton123]

Please verify the md5 checksum of the  downloaded ISO image and - in case you are installing from a CD - burn  another CD.

Also see the VNware's supported hardware list - http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

Cheers, Yours Udin

[aravinds3107]

Probably it should be a media issue, try burning a different CD and give a try..

[usmanjamil]

No the media is fine. I've validated the checksum and also re-written the cd. Any other ideas?

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

Which hardware you are using , who is the vendor and what is the configuration of hardware in which you are installing the ESXi

[usmanjamil]

Dont know how to check that but this is what Windows 2008 installed on that machine shows in system summary information.

System Manufacturer     Intel Corporation

System Model     S3420GP

System Type     x64-based PC

Processor     Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X3430  @ 2.40GHz, 2395 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date     Intel Corp. S3420GP.86B.01.00.0040.021120101620, 2/11/2010

SMBIOS Version     2.5

Windows Directory     C:\Windows

System Directory     C:\Windows\system32

Boot Device     \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Locale     United States

Hardware Abstraction Layer     Version = "6.1.7600.16385"

User Name     Not Available

Time Zone     Pakistan Standard Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM)     8.00 GB

Regards

Usman

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

Who is the hardware vendor ie HP , IBM, or DELL

[usmanjamil]

Hello Umesh

I dont know the vendor name exactly, as I got this machine assembled from the market around 18 months back while working for Microsoft HyperV application. But does the vendor name matter, if I have the write hardware inside the box. I'm attaching a detailed summary of my machine, please see if that helps.

Thanks again for your help

Regards

Usman Jamil

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

Yes sometime hardware matters because Installation of ESX / ESXi depends on the generation of the hardware supported , hence which hardware you are using is supported or not for ESX / ESXi is pre-requisist

Check wether your hardware is supported or not from the below link

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?source=hp&q=vmware%20matrix%20compatibility&gbv=2&oq=vmware%20mat&aq=3&aqi=g4g-v5g-j1&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=500l3876l0l8221l11l11l1l1l1l0l329l1408l0.2.3.1l6l0

[aravinds3107]

You can run Intel Processor Identification utility and check if your processor supports virtualiation

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-030729.htm