The free tool offers new features and eases administration when installing a VMware hypervisor into a VM.
We know that many of our internal teams (field, engineering, support, etc.), customers and partners have relied entirely on my Nested ESXi virtual appliances (VAs) over the years, making it easy to deploy both. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) And VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) laboratory environments for learning, testing, troubleshooting, automation and development purposes. To assist customers with troubleshooting and prototyping purposes, Nested ESXi Vases are used regularly and have proven invaluable in facilitating daily work.
As part of the VMware by Broadcom “Day 2” transition, the hosting platform that hosted many Nested ESXi downloads was no longer available, impacting both standalone Nested ESXi downloads as well as the library of Nested ESXi content, which was a convenient way to subscribe. to all VAs in your vCenter Server.
But now the Nested ESXi Virtual Appliance downloads are back and they are now available as part of the VMware Flings program!
Read also: How to manage ESXi 8.0 roles in VMware Host Client?
Embedded ESXi standalone downloads
Sign up for a free Broadcom Community account then head towards the VMware Flings Communityaccept the license agreement and you will see the list of downloads at the very top, as shown in the screenshot below.
Unfortunately, the Nested ESXi Content Library will no longer be available, but if you would like to have something similar in your own environment, you can create your own Nested ESXi Content Library by following this blog post. HERE.
Although it is possible to nest a VMware ESXi hypervisor into another VMware product such as Workstation, Fusion or vSphere, doing so in a production environment is probably not the best solution and certainly should not be considered a supported architecture for an organization.
VMware engineers have worked hard to generate a number of quick and free enhancements to VMware products known as Flings. These free but unsupported tools are created by a division of VMware known as VMware Labs. VMware's lack of official support for using these tools in a production environment has not slowed their success or the interest of virtualization administrators.
Read also: Management Options in VMware ESXi Advanced Administration