Recently VMware Inc. announced the release of an ESXi-Arm Fling. As the name suggests ESXi-Arm is a specific version of ESXi built to run on 64-bit Arm processors. While this has been a few years in the making, Project Monterey has helped speed up this process with the support of SmartNICs.
Recently VMware Inc. announced the release of an ESXi-Arm Fling. As the name suggests ESXi-Arm is a specific version of ESXi built to run on 64-bit Arm processors. While this has been a few years in the making, Project Monterey has helped speed up this process with the support of SmartNICs.
VMware ESXi on Arm
ESXi was designed for x86 compute virtualization. Typically, when one thinks of virtualization, it is in those terms. However, a few years ago VMware began working on porting ESXi to Arm, with a few examples given over the years. As the differences between x86 and Arm are significant this took some time and lots of testing, not to mention several changes to keep it running correctly on Arm. Through Arm’s Project Cassini, VMware has been able to get ESXi to run on several Arm-based devices in the data center and edge. This includes support for Raspberry Pi and SmartNICs.
Last month VMware introduced Project Monterey. As we said about the initiative at the time, it is all about agility and flexibility to allow customers to adapt their data center, cloud, or edge environments to meet the needs of new technology without giving up performance, availability, or security. Project Monterey will extend VMware infrastructure and operations for all applications, which should reduce complexity as well as TCO. While the initiative does several things, its support for SmartNICs in VMware Cloud Foundation is the first use case for Arm, which brings us to the ESXi-Arm Fling announcement.
According to the company, a Fling is a VMware program sponsored through the Office of the CTO designed to offer early-stage software to the VMware community. Basically, customers or members of the VMware community get to use the new technology and give feedback. Not all Flings necessarily become VMware products but they tell the company how users want to utilize technology.
Now that the kinks have been worked out, the Arm Fling is out to be played with. The platforms specifically targeted are Raspberry Pi 4, Ampere Computing eMAG-based servers, and a couple of NXP LayerScape-based Edge/IoT platforms. Once it has been installed, the Arm Fling can be managed by vCenter Server 7.0 or newer.
Availability
ESXi-Arm Fling is available for download now.
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