ESX 3i Embedded Availability Imminent

With VMworld Europe in full swing we can expect some product announcements and press releases happing every day.

VMware ESX 3i Embedded will be available from at least 4 major vendors "real soon now". At least that's the word on the street. I've definitely heard similar things from my vendor contacts.

I'm very excited about this since it will be great to use in some of our regional sites. It's tough to get disparate hardware in and have to juggle configs around to get on that new hardware remotely. This should really smooth things out.

Here are some announcements in that arena:

Fujitsu Siemens announces immediate availability: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/fsc_vmworld.html

HP announces March 31 availability:
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/hp_vmworld.html. This comes with the announcment that HP Systems Insight Manager 5.2 will support ESX 3i. HP SIM 5.2 is already available here: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/index.html

Dell announces early April availability:
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/dell_vmworld.html

IBM is only included here as part of the "available within 60 days":
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/3i_rollup_vmworld.html, however a search of their site shows they are well along in preparing to support 3i.

ESX 3.5 Released

I predicted that the bits would drop today and so they have:
http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=ESX350
http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VC250

Since there has been no announcement, this is definitely pre GA and there's no guarantee that these are the final builds.

If anyone finds a link to the docs let me know.