Hi No, you don't need a 2 cpu machine to run ESX, but I'd never run with 1 CPU in production, as you won't be able to use many VMs. For testing, and for learning about the product, you should be fine though. Hope this helps. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: "John Heim" <jheim@math.wisc.edu> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: 8/15/2008 8:54 AM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] vmware (was: buying documentation) Well, this may be a stupid question but do I really need at least 2 processors to run esx? I installed it on a machine with a single cpu . It installed okay but I haven't tried to config a virtual machine yet. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Shugart" <rshugart@pcisys.net> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 8:27 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] vmware (was: buying documentation)

Hi John: I actually configured VMWare ESX to work with an ISCSI array just last week. Actually, understanding the principles of ISCSI is harder than getting VMWare to work with it, and speaking as someone who'd never worked with ISCSI before I had it up and running inside of 4 hours, including setting up the ISCSI target. How much experience with ISCSI do you have outside of VMWare? In general, yes, if you had VMWare workstation some of the concepts would carry over such as how VMs are stored and the things you can do with VMs. However, VMWare Workstation and VMWare ESX are two very different products with two different goals. Unless you've never worked with any kind of virtual machine before, I'm not sure there's much of a point with you starting out with workstation. Even if you have never done anything with virtual machines, you won't gain too much with workstation in terms of skills with ESX, although Workstation is a nice product to work with in its own right. Depending on how much time you have, I'd get VMWare ESX up and running using local storage, make sure you're comfortable with managing local storage including creating VMFS volumes and managing them, and then bring in the ISCSI stuff. The VIC can seem daunting at first from an accessibility standpoint simply because its so busy and there aren't as many keyboard commands as there s hould be. If you've got a virtual center server its even worse. However, take it from someone who has been working with ESX for over a year its very doable if you just take time to learn it. You should be comfortable with your screen reader's mouse commands, and have an overall idea of your architecture, but there's nothing that's not doable with time. Also if you have Linux experience, you can log into the service console and run a lot of commands from there. The service console is NOT a 100% replacement for the VIC GUI though. Hope this helps. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John Heim Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 3:59 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] vmware (was: buying documentation)

Do you have experience with vmware esx and configuring an ISCSI array? That's what I'm going to need to do. I've been diggling around with an evaluation copy of esx 3.5. But i'm thinking I might be better off starting with one of the lesser products intended for a workstation.

What I would really like to know is if I play with vmware workstation, will what I learn be useful to me when learning esx?

----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Shugart" <rshugart@pcisys.net> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 8:38 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] buying documentation

...

Hi John: Well, in the case of VMWare, VMWare has a lot of good documentation, including their installing and configuration guides, available on their web site for free. Many books are available in browsable HTML and downloadable PDF forms, I don't know specifically about the install guide. They aren't the most accessible, but on the other hand I've been able to work my way through them with time if that says anything, so none of them are to the unusable point. If you're into ebooks though, two good sources are bookshare (http://www.bookshare.org) and for specific technical books try http://safari.oreilly.com I've used Safari, and while the main stream site doesn't give you accessible books, you can contact them, tell them you use a screen reader and they'll let you into a special site that has accessible versions of the content for no extra charge. Overall, Orielly is one of the most blind friendly book publishers I know of, although they are expensive. Its worth it though. Finally, there are several of us on this list who work with VMWare, including myself, so if you have questions I'm sure we would be more than happy to do the best we can to answer. I myself work with VMWare on a daily basis at work, and use all their tools, the SSH interface, the VIC, etc. and do so successfully with minor annoyances that can be major depending on how much pressure you're under, but have never left the annoyance relm for me. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John Heim Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 1:14 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] buying documentation

Anybody have experience buying books on-line? I guess I'm going to need to buy a book on installing & configuring vmware esx. I have been struggling just to get it installed. I'm going to have to learn about the remote admin tools and how to get it to talk to an ISCSI array.

I'm worried that if I buy an e-book, I'll end up with the equivalent of a pdf document.

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