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ESXi on Protectli Vault Pro 6650/6670

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I always love hearing about new and interesting hardware vendors from our VMware community, which is exactly how I came to learn about Protectli back in 2021 from fellow vExpert Trevor Smith. It was in 2021 where Trevor had shared with the vExpert Community that Protectli was developing a 10GbE hardware kit, which was really interesting since there was not many options for small form factor systems at that time that included 10GbE connectivity.

After following up with Protectcli in 2021, they confirmed a 10GbE kit was in the works but it was still in early design and development, so there was nothing to evaluate at the time. Fast forward to April 2024, I received a follow-up email asking if I would be interested in kicking the tires on their first 10GbE kits with their new Protectli Vault Pro 6600 series.


So here is your first look at the ESXi running on the new Protectli 10G Vault Pro!

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No entitlements needed for these popular VMware downloads on Broadcom Support Portal (BSP)

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As users are getting more familiar with the new Broadcom Support Portal (BSP), especially for downloading VMware software, an active entitlement is required for most downloads.

UPDATE (03/25/24) - Here is a direct link to all the Free downloads on the BSP https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/free-downloads

Note: If you are new to Broadcom Support Portal (BSP), be sure to check out my recent blog post on tips for navigating and downloading from BSP.

However, there are a number of VMware downloads that do NOT require an entitlement at all. After the exciting news from the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division on our Desktop Hypervisor Products (Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro) being available, completely FREE for personal use, I wanted to highlight other popular VMware downloads that also do not require an entitlement and more importantly where to navigate within the BSP site to download.

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Nested ESXi Virtual Appliances are now back under VMware Flings Community!

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I know many of our internal teams (field, engineering, support, etc.), customers and partners have heavily relied on my Nested ESXi Virtual Appliances (VA) over the years which makes it seamless to deploy both VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) lab environments for learning, testing, troubleshooting, automation and development purposes. To support our customers in troubleshooting and prototyping purposes, I also make use of my Nested ESXi VAs on a regular basis and have found this to be invaluable in aiding my day to day work.

As part of the VMware by Broadcom "Day 2" transition, the hosting platform that housed my Nested ESXi downloads was no longer available and that impacted both the standalone Nested ESXi downloads but also the Nested ESXi Content Library, which provided a convenient way to subscribe to all the VAs from your vCenter Server.

Today, I excited to share that my Nested ESXi Virtual Appliance downloads are back and they are now available under the VMware Flings program! 🥳

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