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ESXi on GMKtec EVO-X1 with AMD Ryzen AI Pro 300 Series (formally Strix Point)

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My experiences with small form factor (SFF) systems and Mini PCs over the years have primarily involved Intel-based systems, as they have been the most capable and compatible with the VMware ESXi Hypervisor—especially when it comes to onboard networking options.

Intel's introduction of their Hybrid CPU core architecture starting with 12th Gen (Alder Lake) and continues with 13th Gen (Raptor Lake), 14th Gen (Meteor Lake), and now 15th Gen (Arrow Lake), presents a unique challenge for running ESXi.

When AMD announced their Ryzen AI 300 Series processors (formally codenamed Strix Point) based on their new Zen 5 architecture, I was pretty excited with their approach to a "Hybrid" processor:

AMD's approach to its 'compact' Zen 5c cores is inherently different than Intel's approach with its e-cores. Like Intel's E-cores, AMD's Zen 5c cores are designed to consume less space on a processor die...But the similarities end there. Unlike Intel, AMD employs the same microarchitecture and supports the same features with its smaller cores.

Since both the Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores contain the exact same CPU features, they would be considered uniform cores unlike the Intel platform, which now includes three different core types (Performance, Efficiency & Low-Power Efficiency), requiring additional workarounds to be able to utilize most of the cores available on the SoC.

While there is currently only a handful of Ryzen AI Pro 300 Series kits that are available for purchase, I was fortunate to get hands on with one from a company called GMKtec, who is a relatively new player in the small form factor market. I have personally never used a GMKtec system before, so I was looking forward to seeing what they had to offer.


Disclaimer: As of publishing this blog post, a fellow colleague has not had any luck in contacting GMKtec to initiate a return, they have been completely non-responsive for several weeks now. I have also observed simliar negative feedback on various Reddit threads, which is certainly concerning for potential prospects. Users may want to consider purchasing GMKtec systems using Amazon, rather than directly from the vendor in case you need an exchange or return.

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Quick Tip - Listing all vSphere Privilege Definitions

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By design, the vSphere platform (includes vCenter Server and ESXi) is highly extensible and additional vSphere Events and Privileges can added by 2nd and 3rd party solutions. Similiar to vSphere Events, where you can query your specific vCenter Server (or ESXI hosts) to list all vSphere Event definitions, you can also do the same for vSphere Privileges.

Using PowerCLI, we can use the Get-VIPrivilege cmdlet to help list out the vSphere Privilege Groups and the specific granular vSphere Privileges that exists within deployment.

Here is an example of listing all the different vSphere Privilege Groups that have been defined, either out of the box and/or by 2nd or 3rd party solution:

Get-VIPrivilege -PrivilegeGroup | select id,Description | Sort-Object -Property Id


As of vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3c, there are currently 111 out of the box vSphere Privilege Groups, you may have more or less depending on your version and the number of 2nd/3rd party integrations.

Here is an example of listing all the vSphere Privilege definitions that have been defined, either out of the box and/or by 2nd or 3rd party solution:

Get-VIPrivilege -PrivilegeItem | select id,Description | Sort-Object -Property Id


As of vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3c, there are currently 473 out of the box vSphere Privileges, you may have more or less depending on your version and the number of 2nd/3rd party integrations.

Additionally, you may also find these other vSphere Authorization blog posts useful:

Quick Tip - Audit vCenter Server Role & Permission Usage

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vCenter Server ships out of the box a number of system and custom roles, which can be used or users can create their own custom roles containing the required privileges. If you wanted to understand which roles are actively being used, the following PowerCLI snippet can help provide insights to roles that have been assigned. Furthermore, the script will also output to a file, that contains all he privileges defined for the vCenter Roles that are in active use.

$roles = Get-VIRole
$permissions = Get-VIPermission

$results = @{}
foreach ($permission in $permissions) {
    $role = $permission.Role
    if($results.ContainsKey($role)) {
        $results[$role]+=1
    } else {
        $results[$role]=1
    }
}

Write-Host "`nTotal Roles: $($roles.count)"
Write-Host "Total Roles Used: $($results.count)"
Write-Host "Role Usage:"

$results.GetEnumerator() | Sort-Object -Property Value -Descending

$outfile = "used-roles.txt"
foreach ($key in $results.keys) {
    $role = Get-VIRole $key
    if(!$role.IsSystem) {
        $key | Out-File -Append -LiteralPath $outfile
        "=========================================================" | Out-File -Append -FilePath $outfile
        $role.ExtensionData.Privilege | Out-File -Append -LiteralPath $outfile
        "" | Out-File -Append -LiteralPath $outfile
    }
}

Here is an example output of running the script:


Here is an example output from used-roles.txt file that is generated, which contains the list of privileges for each role that is in use: