ESX

This kept us occupied quite a bit: after having worked with HP’s G7 line of servers for a long time, we ordered our first DL380 G8 for use with VDI. According to HP’s documentation the same custom image can (and must be) used when installing ESXi as with the G7. With that information, setting up the G8 sounded like an easy job: provision it via the existing automation mechanism and be done.

The HotPlug functionality of VMware ESX(i) 4 and 5 has the negative side effect that it is easily possible to “eject” hardware devices from inside the virtual machine, completely removing the respective device from the VM configuration. This is especially bad if it happens to the network card, and others have already described how to prevent that from happening (e.g. here and here).