Esx Installation; Prerequisites For Installing Esx; Esx Hardware Requirements - VMware ESX 4.0 - GETTING STARTED UPDATE 1 Getting Started

Getting Started with ESX

ESX Installation

Install ESX to get started with running virtual machines. The machine running ESX virtualization software
will act as a host in your virtual infrastructure.
Hosts provide CPU and memory resources, access to storage, and network connectivity for virtual machines
that reside on them.

Prerequisites for Installing ESX

Before you begin the installation procedure, ensure that the host meets the prerequisites.
The prerequisites are as follows:
Make sure the host has a supported network adapter.
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ESX Hardware Requirements

Using ESX requires specific hardware and system resources.
64-Bit Processor
VMware ESX 4.0 will only install and run on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.
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Known 64-bit processors:
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All AMD Opterons support 64 bit.
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All Intel Xeon 3000/3200, 3100/3300, 5100/5300, 5200/5400, 7100/7300, and 7200/7400 support 64 bit.
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All Intel Nehalem (no Xeon brand number assigned yet) support 64 bit.
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RAM
2GB RAM minimum
Network Adapters
One or more network adapters. Supported network adapters include:
Broadcom NetXtreme 570x gigabit controllers
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Intel PRO 1000 adapters
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SCSI Adapter, Fibre Channel Adapter, or Internal RAID Controller
One or more of the following controllers (any combination can be used):
Basic SCSI controllers are Adaptec Ultra-160 and Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT, and most NCR/
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Symbios SCSI controllers.
Fibre Channel, see the Hardware Compatibility Guide at
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http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
RAID adapters supported are HP Smart Array, Dell Perc (Adaptec RAID and LSI MegaRAID), and IBM
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(Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.
6 VMware, Inc.