How to sell yourself ESXi?

Question

VMware

Often you have to advise certain people and organizations about the implementation of virtualization in them. Basically, these are rather small companies that do not really fall under the Western wording of SME / SMB - up to 100 employees, small budgets. Until now, I have never advised a client on VMware solutions - either Hyper-V, or nothing at all. I am familiar with ESXi, used it in a laboratory environment for a long time (because of nested virtualization). I constantly feel like a person with duckling syndrome - what I first met, for that I "drown". However, so far I have not seen a single competitive advantage in VMware solutions. Virtualization on a small scale on a couple of servers? On MS it is very simple, cheap and "as a gift" you get the opportunity to build a cool storage for these purposes without additional payments (storage spaces). The same, but highly available? We add the cost of SAS JBOD and get a two-node cluster literally on the knee. Thin clients? Terminal servers on Windows are still the cheapest solution. Virtual desktops? Windows knows how to do it. VMware can do better, but Windows is much cheaper. Centralized management? System Center for an unlimited number of VMs costs a fraction less. The Datacenter Hyper-V license allows you to run an unlimited number of virtual machines with Windows on top of it, ESXi does not provide such an opportunity for any money. Centralized management? System Center for an unlimited number of VMs costs a fraction less. The Datacenter Hyper-V license allows you to run an unlimited number of virtual machines with Windows on top of it, ESXi does not provide such an opportunity for any money. Centralized management? System Center for an unlimited number of VMs costs a fraction less. The Datacenter Hyper-V license allows you to run an unlimited number of virtual machines with Windows on top of it, ESXi does not provide such an opportunity for any money.

ESXi is capable of true fault tolerance, not high availability. And you have to pay for this fault tolerance, while Hyper-V has "high availability" even in the free edition. VMware knows how to do cool VDI, which costs some impossible money. ESXi supports a strictly defined list of hardware (because of which servers periodically turn into a pumpkin), Windows at the same time starts even on a bread machine.

In summary: VMware solutions have two killer features that Windows does not have. Winda at the same time is how to eat in Moscow to go.

The client does not care, the client will almost always take anything that a talkative "specialist" advises him. But with all that said, how do you sell ESXi to yourself first?

PS Yes, I just want a line in my resume.

Answer 1

As a result, I began to study VMware and guess how I managed to "sell" it to myself? VDI. Everything that Microsoft VDI has to do with crutches and roundabout ways is available from a single console with VMware.
Of course, for money.
Thank you all for your opinions.

Answer 2

The client does not care, the client will almost always take anything that a talkative "specialist" advises him. But with all that said, how do you sell ESXi to yourself first?

It also depends on the scale - some variants of ESXi are generally free.
Some features of Hyper-V are free.
The Datacenter Hyper-V license allows you to run an unlimited number of virtual machines with Windows on top of it, ESXi does not provide such an opportunity for any money.
Again, it depends on the scale. If the client does not like the price of the Data Center and does not rest so much on Windows?
ESXi is capable of true fault tolerance, not high availability. And you have to pay for this fault tolerance, while Hyper-V has "high availability" even in the free edition.
Well, it depends on your specific needs.
If you really need real fault tolerance, the difference in price will really stop you.
Total:
In each individual case, different distortions are possible.
Somewhere in the direction of the soft ones, where in the direction of the vmware

Answer 3

to understand in general what VMware and MS are, you need to administer large solutions on these vendors for a couple of years, solve cases with technical support, look for answers in the community..
why do you need more than 100 VMs on one host? want to torture the CPU?

Answer 4

You can't sell ESXi to yourself, because ESXi itself is free. You can download ESXi from the VMWare website right now, after registering. The vCenter is paid and the more chips it contains, the more expensive, but with VDI from VMWare, this is a completely different product of VMWare Horizon.
And now, in terms of hypervisors - if we compare them, ESXi outperforms Hyper-V in terms of resource intensity, weighs everything in the installed form, almost does not eat memory for itself, and almost does not consume the processor. And this is not an unimportant factor for small companies where every gigabyte and megahertz counts.
ESXi can forward USB - another nail in Hyper-V's coffin. It saved me and my little customers more than once.
In my experience, there has never been any server hardware that was not friendly with ESXi if the hardware was released before the release of ESXi.

Answer 5

VMWare is now the leader in the virtualization market, so since you are advising "certain people and organizations on the implementation of virtualization", you simply must know what ESXI and vcenter are. As a lure: ESXI works great from a flash drive, in fact, it is even recommended, the latest generations of servers have a USB and / or an sd / microsd slot. Further VDI: in industrial systems only VMware or Citrix and I have not heard a single success story about MS. Communicated with colleagues who use MS in a large company, problems arise.
I'm not saying that VMWare is sinless, there are problems too, but finding a solution for KB from VMWare is easier, and the system itself is quite simple. Therefore, for a company with good potential, I would advise them, and if you want cheaper, then there are free systems.