esx: esx 3.0 feature highlights

• NAS and iSCSI Support
  ESX Server 2.x could store virtual machines only on SCSI disks and on Fibre Channel SANs. ESX Server 3.0 can store virtual machines on NAS and iSCSI. iSCSI LUNs, like Fibre Channel LUNs, can be formatted with the VMware file system (VMFS). Each virtual machine resides in a single directory. Network attached storage (NAS) appliances must present file systems over the NFS protocol for ESX Server to be able to use them. NFS mounts are used like VMFS with ESX Server creating one directory for each virtual machine.
  Four-way Virtual SMP and 16 GB Memory Available to Guest Operating Systems
  Virtual machines can now have up to 4 processors (up from 2) and 16 GB of RAM (up from 3.6 GB) allocated to them.
  
  
• ESX Server Clusters
  VirtualCenter 2.x introduces the notion of a cluster of ESX Server hosts. A cluster is a collection of hosts that can be managed as a single entity. The resources from all the hosts in a cluster are aggregated into a single pool. A cluster looks like a stand-alone host, but it typically has more resources available.
  
  
• 64-Bit OS Virtual Machines
  64-bit guest operating systems are experimentally supported and visible in the Virtual Infrastructure Client interface, with full support available in future VI3 releases.
  
  
• Hot-Add Virtual Disk
  ESX Server 3.0 supports adding new virtual disks to a virtual machine while it is running. This is useful with guest operating systems capable of recognizing hot-add hardware.

• VMFS 3
  There is a new generation of VMFS in ESX Server 3.0. Scalability, performance, and reliability have all improved. Furthermore, subdirectories are now supported. ESX Server system will create a directory for each virtual machine and all its component files.
  
  
• Potential Scalability Bottlenecks Have Been Removed
  In ESX Server 2.x, one vmx process per running virtual machine ran in the service console to implement certain virtual machine functionality. In ESX Server 3.x, these processes are no longer bound to the service console but instead are distributed across a server's physical CPUs.
  
  
• New Guest SDK Available
  
The VMware Guest SDK allows software running in the guest operating system in a VMware ESX Server 3.0 virtual machine to collect certain data about the state and performance of the virtual machine. Download the Guest SDK package from www.vmware.com/support/developer/
• VMware Tools Auto-Upgrade
  
VMware Infrastructure 3 (ESX Server 3.0/VirtualCenter 2.0) supports the ability to install or upgrade VMware Tools on multiple virtual machines at the same time without needing to interact with each virtual machine. Detailed instructions are provided in the Installation and Upgrade Guide.