Talk:VMware

'ESX's kernel is definitely NOT Linux' - but requires Linux
See the ESX FAQ for details, the key part is "it is not derived from Linux or FreeBSD." Within the company, the ESX kernel is known as the "vmkernel," and the Linux-based "console OS" is essentially a specialized VM. Running "uname" there tells you that it's vmnix/Linux, just as a FreeBSD virtual machine that you log in to will tell you that it's, well, FreeBSD. The kernel source for this special vmnix VM can be found at ESX open source.


 * Beware of ignorance, ESX Server is very well based on a Linux 2.4.9 kernel, thats why they provide the GPLed sources at the address mentioned above. The mkvmnix script takes care of the patch job. Besides VMware uses ISOLINUX to make their installer CDs. They've stripped down the kernel so to provider better stability in those drivers needed to operate ESX (NIC's and SAN HBA's) --62.2.200.154 13:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * From the cited URL: "ESX Server runs natively on server hardware, without a host operating system. The ESX Server virtualization layer is a highly compact and efficient operating system kernel entirely developed by VMware for optimum virtual machine performance. This allows ESX Server to fully manage the hardware ::So, yes, ESX Server includes a full Linux installation (the service console), but it's a VM that runs inside a hypervisor based on a non-Linux-kernel. I suppose it runs alongside the user-configured VMs. The sources you are referring to are obviously just the sources for the modified kernel of the service console (as required by the GPL), not for the vmkernel (i.e. hypervisor kernel).
 * I can see at least two reasons why the VMs would not run directly under a Linux kernel: First, VMWare might not want to disclose the source code for certain functions that cannot be implemented in Linux user land. Second, and this reason is stated by VMWare themselves, better security. Think about it: If all the VMs would run as Linux processes then hijacking one VM by means of a bug in the virtualization code would likely give an attacker easy access to resources of other VMs. You could try to work around this problem by letting each VM run as a different user, using chroot to hide parts of the filesystem etc., but it's hard to achieve this separation and easy to miss something. Also, while many privilege escalation and chroot breaking problems have been fixed in the history of Linux, it's hard to say whether there are more.
 * On the other hand, a microkernel-based approach would allow hypervisor security to be designed properly and (from a security perspective) optimized for this single purpose. There's also less code to audit (mostly memory management, message passing and authorization) in the kernel and in a separate resource service that would (so I guess) authorize VMs to use certain resources depending on configuration. Of course, this architecture does not support the wide range of applications that Linux supports, but the whole point is that it does not even need to! Anything that's necessary for server administration but does not run at the hypervisor microkernel level can be run at the service console level, which from the point of view of the hypervisor is just a VM with certain extra privileges (for example, sshd and the webserver run in the service console). The service console is meant to only provide administration services, so for example if you're a web-hosting provider, you would not even allow ordinary users to connect to the service console, for example by blocking all access in your company firewall. And even if you manage to hijack another (user) VM process, you'll have a hard time hijacking other user VMs or the service console from there or even accessing resources that the hijacked VM process is not allowed to access.
 * Long story short, yes, a GNU/Linux-based VM is an essential part of ESX server as it's necessary for administration via the ESX server web interface and/or SSH. But that does not mean that the actual user VMs run under GNU/Linux. In fact, it's easy to see that they don't, unless VMWare is not only lying but also using rootkit-like methods for covering up their lies. (I have no reason to assume either, without actual evidence from your part.) For example, log into the service console using SSH and execute "free". On one of our ESX servers, the service console has only 256M RAM, which is far less than what the user VMs are using. vmware-vmx processes are visible via ps, but they are not in /proc and have far less CPU time than necessary to run our VMs over their entire uptime. So I'm guessing that these process table entries refer to hypervisor processes and are made accessible in the modified Linux kernel to enable or facilitate VM management. Also, the service console /proc/cpuinfo reports a single processor whereas this ESX server runs on a 4-way Opteron system. If you dig deeper into the information from /proc, I'll bet you'll find many more similarities with the configuration reported in user VMs. Aragorn2 20:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Insert::Further proof that the service console is a special VM is found in that I've had the service console crash, i.e. not able to logon-even from the console, not able to ping the console IP address, etc, and yet, all the VMs on the host continued to run just fine. So the service console is just used to bootstrap the host, set up some system services like raw access to the floppy and CD drives and then it boots the vmkernel. It is somewhat like NetWare which used DOS to bootstrap which in turn loaded server.exe. You could remove DOS from running once the server was up since it was not needed once it booted. deandownsouth:66.21.26.4 18:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I work for VMware, so will not edit the article because of NPOV policies. ESX Server's vmkernel is definitely not Linux or derived from Linux. A good citation for the relationship between the vmkernel and the Service Console is Chapter 2 of Oglesby, Herrod, and Laverick's ESX Server Advanced Technical Design Guide. Jtroyer 23:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Does working someplace mean you really know waht you're talking about? If it's "definitely not Linux or derived from Linux" - then how come when I do a "diff" on the ESX SCSI driver source code, do I find that it's 90% compatible with the original Linux open sources ?


 * If your tech team stole GPL code (eg: RedHat AS3u6), modified it, and shipped it re-badged as "ESX" - do you think they'd *advertise* they did this to all vmware staff???


 * Here's a test to try - pretend you're not a vmware employee, and email vmware asking for the GPL source code (hint: read the GPL 1st - especially the bit about the requirement to provide *all* the bits needed to build the binary). You'll never get it.  I've spent 2 years trying.  VMware have secrets, and they're keeping them diligently.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.137.129 (talk) 12:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

JTroyer: that vmkernel isn't Linux doesn't change the fact that it is loaded by Linux, and that Linux is required to run VMkernel, and continues running while ESX is, according to the guide you've pasted. I've yet to see any VMware products which can run without an existing kernel. deadndownsouth: If the Linux kernel had crashed - as opposed to the userspace - the vmware kernel wouldn't have a proc filesystem to use, and wouldn't be able to allocate memory on the hardware, as both these tasks are provided by Linux while the ESX server runs - see references in article. Mike MacCana, 2007 05 25


 * I don't see your point. JTroyer didn't deny the fact that vmkernel needs the Linux kernel to work. What are you arguing about? Nikos 09:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

ESX has two kernels according to VMware - Linux, and vmkernel
Yes, vmkernel is not based on Linux. But according to both the ESX FAQ, and any ESX machine's boot process (a video of which is referenced on the page), the first kernel started on an ESX host is Linux, but it loads vmkernel (also described by VMware as being a kernel) which is, according to VMware, not based on Linux.

In traditional systems, a given operating system is considered to have a single kernel. The VMware FAQ mentions that ESX has both a Linux 2.4 kernel and vmkernel. Hence confusion over whether ESX is based on Linux. vmkernel is not based on Linux according to vmware. But vmkernel can not be started without Linux.

Mike MacCana, 2007 05 25

Version history wanted
Microsoft Virtual PC does have the version history, but VMware doesn't -- even though it's older (AFAIK). Even a brief version history is welcome; I've tried to google, but I can't find anything relevant myself. --tyomitch 11:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Version history is listed at the download page of each VMware product. Nikos 09:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Really? Then please read for me when VMware Workstation 3.0 was released. And when was the first public version released ? --Xerces8 07:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Not an advertisement, but not an encyclopedia article either!
This starts out as an article about a corporation, but ends up being a highly specific technical discussion of a software product. "Known Issues" section?!?! Would this be "known issues" about the corporation?

With a new software release, or just release of a few patches, and a fair amount of information in this article becomes obsolete.

It seems to me that, if this article is indeed about the corporation, then most of the detailed product information needs to be moved to a separate article.

This product family clearly has a large number of knowledgeable and devoted fans. However, I would "call the question" on how much detailed technical information about the current state of a software product is appropriate in an encyclopedia article.

Thanks for your consideration. Keep up the good work.

Carl Gusler 02:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

-- good work? are you a moron or what - this article does not cover any technical details! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.173.223.243 (talk) 16:44, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It's as close to being an ad for all the company's products as makes no difference. I don't have an issue with an article for the company, but articles for each of its products are pure advertising (I've looked at some of them).  Anyone wanting info on VMWare's product range can and should go to its website.  I think what Carl was trying to say is that it's not a good idea to incorporate slabs of product-level detail, as these must necessarily change frequently if VMWare is at all interested in product development.  And calling someone a moron isn't exactly respectful, please refrain Chrismorey (talk) 09:09, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Known issues
In my opinion it is not an issue that some kind of NAS / iSCSI / FC storage must be used for HA and DRS. This is the only logical way to implement this. I think this issue should be removed. --Sophis 19:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC) I totally agree with Sophis. If the article is going to list the requirement of shared storage as an issue, it should also list the requirements of network cables and power as other potential issues. 68.164.207.118 04:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC) CCOSTAN


 * Looks, that nobody else has a problem, when I remove this now ... :-) --Sophis 22:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Infrastructure Limitation?
I think the statement of VirtualCenter being a single point of failure is incorrect. Although, there is normally only one VirtualCenter Management server managing a particular ESX host at a time, you can have multiple Management servers in your environment if you so choose. Also, if VirtualCenter does fail, only DRS is affected. HA and the ESX hosts continue to function and each individual server can also be managed directly. If the VirtualCenter server ITSELF is a Virtual Machine and there is a Hardware failure on it's host ESX server, HA will kick in and restart the virtualcenter VM on another server providing some level of protection. I am not sure if all of this is appropriate but at the very least, the 'limitation' statement should be removed since I believe it to be more of an opinion than fact. 68.164.207.118 03:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC) CCostan


 * You are right: if the Console fails, the systems them selfs continue to run. Sorry for this - I think I mixed something up - maybe Sun N1 or so... --Sophis 22:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

So what's the difference between the VMWare products now?
The current way the products are being described, doesn't leave much of a clue about their actual differences. I came here to get information about just that, but just like the VMWare website this article fails to describe the products in an understandable way, instead it's only marketing or press blah-blah.--87.122.30.84 14:45, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm no "expert" but I have worked with VMWare stuff for several years. VMWare Player only 'plays' VMWare images.  The VMWare images cannot be modified or created.  VMWare Workstation is for use on workstations (desktops...)- typically in a testing/development scenario.  VMWare Fusion is for OSX.  VMWare Server is a daemon (service) that runs and is for use with servers that run 24/7.  VMWare Infrastructure (formerlly ESX) is for Datacenters that require a higher level of tuning/performance, in addition to services such as DRS, HA, and other datacenter level services.  Hope that helps...Gallwapa 19:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-NPOV Removals
Notice: I work for VMware on performance.

I removed the XenSource advertisements in the the performance section. The contents were not NPOV. If someone is going to claim bad performance for VMware in an area they need to cite sources. If they're going to claim superiority of of another product, it should be done on that page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ScottDrummonds (talk • contribs) 23:32, July 20, 2007 (UTC)
 * The text in the performance section cited both excerpts from the installation of Nessus from Tenable's RPM and the performance measurements made by XenSource. Comments about VirtualBox were added to avoid driving people directly from VMWare to Xen in an advertising manner; however, the performance assessments under VirtualBox were original research added under WP:IAR in order to improve the NPOV nature of the text by facilitating non-advertisement. --John Moser 15:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * More of the same, here's some stuff from the CTO at Tenable. .  There seems to be some definition of "Abysmal" and "Performance" here I'm not aware of (abysmal means limitless...).  Statements on Nessus retracted; however, XenSource has some benchmarks and there has been much talk around the net about VMware vs "OS Intensive Loads." --John Moser 19:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * John, note that I have recently learned that, as a VMware employee, I am not supposed to be editing these pages. So, I'm going to refrain from doing so again.  However, as a closing thought on the issue, and speaking as a huge fan of Wikipedia, I think that a certain boundary should exist in the content of competitors.  For instance, check vmware.com/overview/performance and you can find several papers citing superior performance of ESX Server over free source Xen and XenEnterprise.  And while the rules of Wikipedia permit me to go add these links and discussions on the subject to the Xen pages, I find that type of insertion a offense to the intent of this wonderful site.  I'm not going to do that and I hope that the rest of the contributing pool agrees that doing the same to VMware's page is equally contrary to the goals of Wikipedia.   ScottDrummonds 02:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem with you guys is that you see Wikipedia as an advertisement opportunity. You said "if they're going to claim superiority of of another product, it should be done on that page," which confirms it. Articles are not supposed to claim superiority of their subject. You guys are almost as bad as the vandals. Nikos 10:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Assume good faith. 96.52.129.241 (talk) 08:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Broken Link
The link (as of the writing it is reference 4): [ESX Server Advanced Technical Design Guide] is broken. I did not find the new location of the document. Can anybody help? --Sophis 09:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Paragraph mentioned twice
The second paragraph in VMware ESX Server is a repetition of two sentences of the first one. My suggestion: remove the second paragraph. --Sophis 10:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

esx vmkernel module linux kernel derivative
I think someone should mention the potential problems found here: http://www.venturecake.com/the-vmware-house-of-cards/ maybe its already on the page, but I didnt see the link or any mention of a hint of doubt being cast on the esx server. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.233.245.243 (talk • contribs) 22:00, August 16, 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes and No - The point in possible GPL violation is not, that ESX Server is booted with Linux (as described in the cited article) - it's (as stated in the bottom of The Register Article http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/16/vmware_derived_from_linux/), that the ESX Server uses GPLed Linux - Kernel modules. --Sophis 06:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: ESX Server: add architecture section
The section about the ESX Server only views the ESX Server from the point of Linux. There is no architectural overview. My suggestion: add a sub-chapter 'Architecture' and describe some of the (documented) internals of the ESX Server, move the current content of the section to a new subsection 'ESX Server and Linux dependencies'. The content of the 'Architecture' section is something like: 1) Interaction with hardware 2) Handling guest systems 3) device handling 4) disk handling (FC, iSCSI, ...)

Ok? If so, I can start in the next days with some first version. --Sophis 06:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Nobody said No :-) so I just added the section as suggested. I think the new section Dependencies to Linux needs some cleanup.  In my opinion some things are unclear and may be better structured.  Any suggestions for this? --Sophis 07:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The ESX Server content has been migrated to VMware ESX Server, as part of my initiative to move the product-specific content to separate articles. &mdash; EagleOne\Talk 18:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggested split
Looking at the article as it is now, its some kind of hodgepodge composition of VMware as a company and VMware products. Perhaps some of the more major products should get their own article, or a VMware products page should be made so that the VMware article can be focused more directly on the company itself.-- Oni Ookami Alfador Talk 19:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I just completed the migration to separate product articles for each of the major products. We still need to untangle that mess called the Known Issues section, can copy each bullet point to the respective articles.  Once that information has been added to th product articles, I think it can be deleted from this page. &mdash; EagleOne\Talk 18:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Tools for VMware
Hello. I would like to ask you to include the website http://www.veeam.com/ to and external links section. Veeam company develops very usefull tools for managing VMware ESX infrastructure. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.249.183.82 (talk) 09:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia isn't an advertising medium. 74.39.225.12 (talk) 15:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:NOADSJasper Deng (talk) 02:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

So, ah, what does it do?
Sorry for this silly question. I came to this article because one person told me that VMware would let me run Windows applications under GNU/Linux, but another told me that this would require that I have a copy of Windows installed on the computer on which I'm running GNU/Linux.

After reading the intro and most of the article, I've learned nothing :-/

The article talks non-stop about the features of VMware, but could someone mention it's requirement? Thanks in advance. --Gronky (talk) 11:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, Gronky. This page is more about VMware Inc., the company, not the VMware software products.  The information that you're looking for is on the VMware Workstation and VMware Server articles.  Also, near the top of the page, we have a link to List of VMware software, which lists just about every app from the company.  I suggest looking at those articles for more information. &mdash; EagleOne\Talk 18:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Aha. Thanks.  When I've read more, I'll come back and review how to prevent others from being confused as I was. --Gronky (talk) 08:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I gather some of the confusion lies in a (wrong) initial sentence: (quote) "VMware's desktop software runs atop Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X." (end quote). It's obvious that it's upside down, and instead it should read thus: "Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X can run atop VMware's desktop software, which is in control of the hardware". Am I wrong??? --AVM (talk) 18:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, the sentence isn't wrong. VMware's desktop software runs inside a host OS, like MS Windows or Linux for Workstation, or OS X for Fusion.  So far as I know, the desktop products do not directly control the host hardware.  You're probably thinking of their enterprise server software, ESX. &mdash; EagleOne\Talk 19:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Not a silly question. My company bought a new server with virtulization, and I operate this device including provisioning new virtual-machines.  I have (had) no idea what all the products do, what they depend on, how the compare to each other.  I use the vSphere client and our server uses ESXi, but we licensed some so-called vCenter software that I could not find nor understand the purpose of.  Plus, if ESXi is "free", what did we buy?  I added the product table after doing some research to help understand the overview of the "product list".  Once you can see where each product fits, its time to read their descriptions and understand them in more detail.  I hope this table is accurate and helps other people as an introduction to VMWare virtulization products.  Someone will need to fact-check and add hyperlinks, I've done all I can.  (TM 12/20/09 4pm CST)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.218.238 (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

"Freeware" vs. "Free"
After reading the VMware ESXi section I learned that there is a big difference between VMWare Server, which is freeware and VMware ESXi which is not freeware since it is merely free:


 * VMware ESXi (formerly called "VMware ESX 3i"), is also an enterprise-level product, delivering greater performance than the freeware VMware Server, just as VMware ESX does. VMware ESXi also integrates into VMware Virtual Infrastructure. VMware ESXi differentiates itself from VMware ESX, because the Service Console is removed, and replaced with a minimal Busybox installation, thus reducing the security footprint, and the ability to manage the system directly from the console. In July 2008, VMware decided to give ESXi away for free.

Only problem is that I should not have learned that since it's really a failure to write a decent description.

38.105.65.130 (talk) 14:19, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The material that was split off into separate articles
On 21 September 2007, User:EagleOne removed some material from this article and redistributed and added that material to other articles such as VMware Server. This was kind of him, but the moving wasn't perfect. Today, I noticed a problem. The limitations section of VMware Server said VMware Server had limited support for 3D acceleration. It doesn't; only VMware Fusion does. I fixed the mistake. But, is it likely that there are other mistakes left hanging around? What is the best solution? Could somebody kindly check that the Limitations section for each VMware product is correct for that product and edit each limitation item to say something like "VMware GSX does not support" instead of "VMware does not support"? Then could they tell us here that that check has been done? P.S. I told the user who did the original splitting to look at this talk item and reply here. Thanks in advance, --unforgettableid | talk 18:06, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

What is this article about?
Most people come here wanting to know about the software. Instead they are greeted with unencyclopedic marketing fluff (...global leader...) about a company. Can this be corrected? Company info should be a small section in the article. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thats because this article IS about a company, for information about software produced by VMware, there are the articles like VMware Workstation, VMware Server, VMware ThinApp, etc... SF007 (talk) 22:32, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

VM is not an acronym
VM is not an acronym. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.72.94.4 (talk) 14:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

VM *is* an acronym. It stands for Virtual Machine. IBM has implemented VMs since the late 1960s, originally as CP-40 (1967) and, from 1972 to the present day, through the VM family (1972-present).

Two different founded dates??
The Introduction says VMware was founded in 1998 while the right column says 1997. Which is it??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.184.179.82 (talk) 21:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The company was founded in January 1998 Cdg2sfo (talk) 21:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Leader in virtualization?
Isn't VMware a market leader in virtualization? Why is this piece of information being removed as vandalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.162.148.199 (talk) 10:22, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

HGFS
HGFS redirects here, but there doesn't appear to be any information on it in the article. 69.31.174.220 (talk) 20:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Just changed that redirect to VMware Workstation: HGFS implements shared folders (at least) there. -- Juergen 93.229.160.47 (talk) 09:59, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Their customers include all 100 of the Fortune 100 companies.[7]
I have great issue with this statment and verification link.

Comment does not define the Fortune 100 companiesfor what years. Some random sales guy representing the company is not a valid reference source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.129.93.146 (talk) 21:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The citation leads to some company identifying itself as a VMWare professional partner (hence not a neutral source of information), and the comment itself is not accompanied by any supporting facts. Rahul (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 1

 * The following discussion is closed. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
 * Superceded by corrected nomination

VMware → undefined – (IRC log removed) Ranunculoid (talk) 03:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Procedural close no rationale provided. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 06:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Requested move 2

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 20:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

VMware → Vmware – As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(trademarks), company names and trademarks are only allowed to use more than one capital letter if they are written in CamelCase Ranunculoid (talk) 11:33, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose MOS:TM also requires the use of caps where letters are pronounced individually - unless the company's name is pronounced using the same "vm" sound as one finds in the word "movement", it should be written as VMware ("vee-em-ware"). Yunshui 雲 &zwj; 水  11:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment it is pronounced V-M-ware. And "VM" means "Virtual Machine", IIRC. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 11:53, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose for the reasons of pronunciation as detailed above.  Dicklyon (talk) 16:46, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The "VMware" capitalisation seems to be very widely used by sources; I'm happy to go along with that. If quirky capitalisation were just the subject's own fad, then we don't necessarily have to follow it slavishly, but we do need to reflect widespread real-world usage... bobrayner (talk) 08:23, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

VMware Horizon Mirage
Anyone willing to add VMware Horizon Mirage, I'm afraid I won't be able to describe it correctly without simply pasting the commercial blah-blah from the editor. --Olivier Debre (talk) 14:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Section on divestments/demergers?
While this article currently lists VMware's aquisitions, divestments/demergers don't seem to be mentioned anywhere.

Two recent examples include:
 * The "Pivitol Initiative" spin-off involving the Springsource and Cloud Foundry families in December 2012 ,
 * The sale of SlideRocket to ClearSlide in March 2013 ,

Perhaps it would be valuable to include mention of these in the article.

(Disclaimer: I do have a WP:COI, which is why I'm posting this suggestion here instead of editing the article myself.)

50.138.225.125 (talk) 16:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Sections on The Different Services That VMware (the Company) Offers and also add the new products that have been made
The article talks briefly about the history and a lot about the products that they offer, but the article does not talk about the different types of services that VMware has. Also, there is a large list of products, but there are a few products that are missing.

The information on both of the topics can be found on the VMware website. Piscia18 (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2013 (UTC) Utinni1 (talk) 18:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC) 129.252.70.235 (talk) 18:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC) Johnw4200 (talk) 18:15, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Virsto
VMware has bought Virsto; plus, the Virsto article may be a WP:PERMASTUB. Unforgettableid (talk) 03:51, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * With same effect we can rename it to springsource(couse VMware has bought springsource). Initially all companies was indenended. So there must be separate articles. So do not need to merge or rename --178.74.239.121 (talk) 23:02, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed, unless there is a true link between them (e.g. merging of source code) it would be misleading to put them in the same article. A comparison is VirtualBox and Oracle VM Server for SPARC; both are owned by Oracle, but that isn't reason enough for them to be merged. The fact that Virsto may be a permastub isn't a reason for them to be merged if the merging doesn't make sense. -Thunderforge (talk) 15:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

It reads like an AD, and that's a turnoff
But the content is quite accurate. But I mean, come on. Look at the section "Core product design." It's VMware VMware VMware VMware VMware VMware VMware as the first word of every sentence on the left side, right in your face. It's a little too obvious. What I am saying is that it doesn't seem like a credible wikipedia article when it is worded like an ad for VMware. :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eurlim (talk • contribs) 18:04, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Social media links in external links
I have twice removed these, and explained in edit summaries, and on the talk page of, that WP:ELNO point #10, and ELNO which explains that "Normally, only one official link is included." contraindicate that these are necessary, or desirable.

I won't remove them again (I'm old-fashioned about revert warring), so I'll just leave this note here to let other article editors decide what to do. Thanks. Begoon &thinsp; talk 14:38, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that they don't belong.
 * If they're disputed, they stay out per WP:ELBURDEN. --Ronz (talk) 15:59, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Add citation for ThirdSky acquisition
Hi, I added the ThirdSky acquisition to the Acquisitions table, but couldn't figure out how to add the article to References; when I selected Edit on References, it appeared empty.

Here's the link to the article:

http://info.thirdsky.com/blog/third-sky-is-joining-the-vmware-family

- DrGroove (Drgroove (talk) 23:17, 24 August 2015 (UTC))

EMC and VMWare
There has been a fair amount of talk about how EMC is not doing that well while VMWare is, and that VMWare was supposedly interested in buying out their parent company. That rumor has been denied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.97.195 (talk) 01:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on VMware. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090131154330/http://www.vmware.com:80/support/esx21/doc/esx21_admin_system_architecture.html to http://www.vmware.com/support/esx21/doc/esx21_admin_system_architecture.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:56, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

fate = acquired by EMC?
why does it say 'fate = acquired by EMC' but also, it's a publicly traded company? Dog Patch 06 (talk) 23:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * According to the introduction, it was acquired by EMC in 2004 and was a wholly owned subsidiary until EMC sold 15% via an IPO. Not sure what it should be referred to now as it's not clear what level of governance independence it has.  It might be now largely independent with EMC remaining the largest shareholder (e.g. 85% owned by EMC).  Needs clarification, agreed. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Right, perhaps the term might be "majority-owned subsidiary" or something like that. But it might all change when the Dell acquisition closes, which should be any day now. Someone could dig out the SEC documents, although they might be very large for such a transaction. They should be good sources. W Nowicki (talk) 20:39, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to change wording in a lead paragraph
I think that would be very beneficial to change the wording in the lead to emphasize the fact that, at least in the context of VMware products, a “bare-metal hypervisor” is just an operating system. A “POSIX-like” operating system.

Imparting that to the reader, the reader now understands that it runs “directly” on a computer just in the same way that effectively every operating system does. Without this emphasis or re-wording, the current writing almost suggests or implies as if a bare-metal hypervisor is something different than an operating system, which it is not, definitely at least not in the specific context of VMware which is the topic of this article.

Change:

VMware's desktop software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, while its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware ESXi, is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on server hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.

To:

VMware's desktop software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, while its enterprise software hypervisor, VMware ESXi, is an operating system that runs on server hardware.

In some sense, at least in certain marketing materials from the company or in colloquial discussions, VMware ESXi appears to typically be referred to as a hypervisor, but there are multiple sources (e.g. TechTarget) which we can use as a source of more standard and clear terminology which is not peculiar to VMware (or a competing proprietary virtualization product). The current writing follows company marketing materials by deviating from the standard and technically accurate vocabulary.

If there are any objections, please revert the edit and mention them here to build consensus. It would be nice to have some additional citations, e.g. from an O’Reilly book or an additional enterprise software publication other than TechTarget, but for the time being that’s what I have. Stephenamills (talk) 18:37, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Logo choice
There's some in   as to whether the "VMWare" or "VMWare by Broadcom" logo should be used. Logos says Logos that contain slogans should be omitted in favour of equivalent logos that do not. The slogans can be described in the article's prose, or the article's prose and infobox (not in the infobox alone). Is "by Broadcom" a slogan? DefaultFree (talk) 00:20, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It is a byline that was probably mandated by their PR department. There is no tangible difference between the logos. ViperSnake151   Talk  03:37, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Either way, it's VMware, not VMWare. 146.198.146.190 (talk) 08:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Not a sentence
"VMware ESXi." 57.140.32.55 (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Must've been a typo – . --Zac67 (talk) 15:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)