The market leader when it comes to all things virtual, VMWare has a number of products on offer, including the free VMWare Server we reviewed back in June. However, if you want to consolidate and host production systems, then the revamped VMWare Infrastructure 3 (VI3) solution could be a better choice.

VI3 differs from both the free VMWare Server and most other virtualisation products in that it doesn’t need a host operating system. It is based on the tried and tested VMWare ESX Server platform, installed directly onto bare server hardware to deliver enhanced levels of performance, reliability and security.

It’s also highly scalable: the latest version supports up to 128 concurrent virtual machines (VMs) hosted on multiple ESX servers, all managed centrally using VMWare’s Virtualcenter software.

VMWare servers can also all share a common file system – the VMWare virtual machine file system (VMFS), enabling dynamic allocation and load balancing across both virtual and physical servers. You can even move whole VMs from one server to another in real time, complete with active users and applications.

Traditionally bought by larger enterprises, the new VI3 implementation of ESX Server falls well within the reach of smaller businesses, with a new Starter Edition selling for just over £500 excluding Vat.

It has some limitations, though, such as a maximum of four physical processors and 8GB of memory per server, and no virtual SMP facilities. But you do get the Virtualcenter management and shared VMFS for use with local storage and network-attached storage servers.

Industry-standard servers that use either 32- or 64-bit Intel/AMD processors are required with a Windows-like install routine to step you through the setup process. After that, everything is done remotely using Virtualcenter, which needs to be hosted on a Windows server with the main user interface provided by a separate Windows- or web-based, virtual infrastructure (VI) client.

Using the VI client, we were able to create new VMs and convert existing VMs into templates to clone additional copies. We were also able to start, stop, monitor and generally manage VMs from the VI client, allocate VMs to resource pools and delegate management of those resources.

VMs can’t span more than one physical server, but reallocation of things such as processing power, memory and disk space on the host is possible and can even be automated using the optional Distributed Resource Scheduler.

Other extras include support for up to four-way virtual SMP and the use of the virtual file system on Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area network. Both are in the more expensive Standard Edition (£1,979 ex Vat for a two-processor licence), which also lifts the ESX Server processor and Ram limits.

You can add VMWare High Availability to provide automatic failover in the event of a hardware problem, and VMotion, the module that lets you migrate live VMs from one server to another.

System requirements are greater, and it’s not free like VMWare Server, but VI3 provides a more powerful and reliable platform for consolidation of production systems. It’s also better supported and offers additional tools to really take advantage of the VM architecture. Overall, VI3 could, paradoxically, work out cheaper.