This is my own speculation, because I’m not privy to any information from either companies, but only based on blog conjecture and various infos…

Will Cisco buy EMC (who owns a majority of the VMware stock), or will Cisco buy VMware of EMC . With Cisco’s project California (Compute Blades) due to come out shortly, the tension is building up…

EMC must know that VMware is a great financial asset to it’s future, yet EMC might rather sell VMware for a good value rather than taking the risk of being bought itself by Cisco, and so losing it’s independance.

“Specs of the new blades servers that surface on website and blogs: include Intel Core i7 processors, 192GB Memory, PCI Express connectivity (providing access to Cisco Unified Fabric Architecture with direct communication between the blades and the storage servers” Source InternetNews

It is now possible to run VMware ESX 3.0.1 servers inside a VMware Workstation6.0 (Build 45731) if you have specific processors in your system. These processors need to have the new x86 virtualization capabilities (Intel VT or the AMD-V).

The guys are xtravirt.com have written a good starter guide. While they only mentionned how to run it with the Intel VT ( monitor_control.vt32 = TRUE ) flag, you can run them on AMD Opteron (AM2 or Socket F 1207pin). You need to use the monitor_control.svm_enable = TRUE. Thanks to the monitor_control.svn_enable switch, the virtual ESX 3.0.1 server will boot and be ready within 90 seconds.

Here is a sample esx-01.vmx file that I’m using on my AMD Opteron workstation (HP xw9400 Workstation). Notice the ethernet device used (e1000), the number of vcpu (2), and the monitor_control switches.

esx-01.vmx

annotation = "esx-02.vi3.local|0A|0AVMware ESX 3.0.1 Build 39823|0A|0AvSwitch0 - Service Console|0AvSwitch1 - VM Network|0AvSwitch2 - VMotion|0A"
<span lang="EN-GB">config.version = “8″
deploymentPlatform = “windows”
displayName = “esx-02 (VMware ESX 3.0.1)”
ethernet0.addressType = “generated”
ethernet0.connectionType = “bridged”
ethernet0.present = “TRUE”
ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000″
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = “FALSE”
ethernet1.addressType = “generated”
ethernet1.connectionType = “bridged”
ethernet1.present = “TRUE”
ethernet1.virtualDev = “e1000″
ethernet2.addressType = “generated”
ethernet2.connectionType = “bridged”
ethernet2.present = “TRUE”
ethernet2.virtualDev = “e1000″
floppy0.fileName = “/dev/fd0″
floppy0.startConnected = “FALSE”
guestOS = “other-64″
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”
ide1:0.fileName = “/dev/hdc”
ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = “TRUE”</span>
<span lang="EN-GB">isolation.tools.getPtrLocation.disable = “TRUE”
isolation.tools.setPtrLocation.disable = “TRUE”
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = “FALSE”
memsize = “1024″
monitor_control.enable_svm = TRUE
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = TRUE
#monitor_control.vt32 = TRUE
numvcpus = “2″
nvram = “esx-02.nvram”
RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = “0″
scsi0:0.fileName = “esx-02.vmdk”
scsi0:0.present = “TRUE”
scsi0.present = “TRUE”
scsi0.virtualDev = “lsilogic”
svga.vramSize = “16708800″
tools.upgrade.policy = “useGlobal”
</span>virtualHW.productCompatibility = “esx”
virtualHW.version = “4″