Yes, it’s FREE — but only starting from version 8.0U3e!

After months of speculation following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, we now have clarity — VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 8.0U3e is officially available for free, directly from Broadcom.

This is massive news for:

• Homelab enthusiasts
• IT professionals training on their own hardware
• vExperts testing integrations and new features
• Small businesses who need a reliable virtualisation platform

Let’s break it down…

What’s New: Free ESXi 8 is Now Real (But ONLY 8.0U3e and Above)

Broadcom has released VMware vSphere Hypervisor 8.0U3e as a free ISO download, complete with a free license key for standalone use.

This version is the first and only one under the new licensing model to be offered for free.
Download File: VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0U3e-24677879.x86_64.iso
Build Number: 24677879
Size: 618.34 MB

Previous ESXi 8 builds (like 8.0U1 or U2) are not available with a free license anymore. Make sure you download 8.0U3e or later.

How to Access the Free ESXi 8.0U3e ISO from Broadcom

Follow these exact steps to access and download:

Step 1: Go to Broadcom’s Support Portal

https://access.broadcom.com/

Step 2: Register for an Account

• Click Sign Up if you’re not already a member.
• After registration, verify your email address before proceeding.

Step 3: Log In and Navigate to “My Downloads”

• Once signed in, click on your profile dropdown and go to My Downloads.

Step 4: Click on “Free Software Downlaod avaliable HERE”

• In the Downloads section, locate and click on Free Software on the left panel.

Step 5: Select “VMware vSphere Hypervisor”

• You will see the latest versions listed here.

Step 6: Download the ISO

• Look for:
• tick on the I agree the Teams and Condictions
• Click into VMware vSphere Hypervisor Relese (ESXi 8.0U3e)
  VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0U3e-24677879.x86_64.iso
• Click download and save it locally.

Step 7: Retrieve Your Free License Key

• Once downloaded, you’ll see a free license key provided on the same page.
• Apply this license after ESXi is installed to unlock the full functionality for a standalone host.

Ideal Use Cases for ESXi 8.0U3e Free Edition

• Studying for VMware certifications (VCP/VCAP)
• Building a home lab to test vSphere 8’s latest features
• Small, non-clustered virtual environments
• Integration and testing by vExperts and developers

Note: This version does not support vCenter Server integration under the free license. It’s designed for standalone ESXi hosts only — perfect for labs or basic setups.

Special Shoutout to the vExpert & Homelab Community

To all the VMware vExperts, bloggers, and tech YouTubers — thank you for continuously sharing updates, workarounds, and guides. Your insights have helped keep the community informed through the Broadcom transition.

This free version is a huge win for us all.

Whether you’re:

• Setting up a low-power Intel NUC or Supermicro node
• Building out a multi-node lab
• Just getting started with virtualisation…

You now have access to VMware’s powerful hypervisor at zero cost.

Final Thoughts

Broadcom has finally provided the community what many feared would disappear — a free tier of ESXi, now under version 8.0U3e. It’s perfect for labs, learning, testing, and lean deployments.

If you’re a CloudBunch customer or a fellow IT pro and want help installing or managing your ESXi lab — from ISO to VM creation to patching and VM backups — we’ve got your back.

Quick Links

• Register or Login: Broadcom Support Portal
• Download Page: After login, go to My Downloads > Free Software > VMware vSphere Hypervisor

Over to You

Are you running a homelab?
Are you planning to upgrade from an older ESXi version?
Tag your favourite #vExpert and let the community know:
ESXi 8.0U3e is FREE — go get it!

VMware has recently announced the General Availability (GA) of vSphere 8, as always we have a lot of new features and a whole new look to the web interface.

You can download the new vSphere 8 now from VMware https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/8_0

As with all the new versions of VMware products VMware raises the bar for the maximum limits and I think in this new release they have outdone themself again. To check out the Maximum values that vSphere 8. I am particularly surprised by the Host’s maximum Logical CPU limit.

You can visit https://configmax.esp.vmware.com/guest?vmwareproduct=vSphere&release=vSphere%208.0&categories=2-0

Let’s have a quick look what’s new.

VMware has introduced a cool new feature Data Processing Unit ( DPU), This is available in the hardware similar to GPU, PCI or any NIC what VMware has done is they are now going to run the hypervisor within the DPU to offload the networking traffic. ( So, we will be having two instances of vSphere on one hardware). The good thing is this is all managed by vSphere and we VMware Adminis, will not behave over the head of upgrading or updating this as it’s going be managed by the Life Cycle Manager.

https://core.vmware.com/resource/whats-new-vsphere-8#sec21112-sub1

Meet the vSphere Distributed Services Engine, this will be working on the DPU Isolation Layer and will be responsible for the Network and Security

We can easily select the option to offload the network traffic by a simple dropdown selection as shown below:

Check out this quick session which gives you a good overview of the vSphere 8

This blog will be about installing the ESX server from scratch. Once you have mounted the iso or created the nested VM, check out the previous blog post hear https://agileops.co.uk/how-to-install-nested-esxi-server/  if you are doing nexted setup to enabled nested ESX installation.

1. Installation

   Boot the server or VM with ESXi CD

   

   It may take some time to load the installation files and you will start to see the very famious Gray and Yellow screen

   

   Welcome Screen will pop up once the installation files are loaded. You will have two choices ESC to Cancel or Enter to Continue as shown below:

   
   

   You will need to press F11 to Accept and Continue
   

   
   

   You will then need to select the location to install your ESXi Server as my setup is nested ESX and I have allocated 40GB VMDK file you can see it here select and click Enter to continue.
   

   
   
   

Next you will be asked to select the Keyboard layout. I have selected UK and Click on Enter to continue

You will then be selecting a root password, need to be alpha numeric and make sure you remember it or you might need to re-install the ESXi again if you forgot it.

Click Enter to Continue

Nearly done, you will be given a Waring that the disk will be repartitioned so this is the final stage click F11 to install

Note if you are upgrading you will not be asked for entering root password however you will be asked few options

1. In place Upgrade
2. Upgrade as new OS

   You can now sit back and watch the installation should not take more than 4 to 5 minutes.

   

Once the installation is completed you will be asked to press Enter to reboot.

1. Configuration

   In the configuration section you will learn how to configure the ESXi host, assign IPaddress, DNS, Gateway Address using DCUI.

   The Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) allows you to interact with the host.

   Press F2 to login to the DCUI.

   

   Enter the root password which you have chosen during the installation

   

   The first thing you will be doing is configuring the Management Network

   

   Scroll down to the IPv4 Configuration

   

   Configure the following:

   1. Set static IPv4 address and network configuration
   2. IPv4 Address
   3. Subnet Mask
   4. Default Gateway
   5. Press Enter to save and exit.

      

      Then Set option to Use the folloing DNS server address and hostname

      then setup your DNS and the host name

      

      Finally set the Suffixes, and press Enter.

      

      Then press Esc to exit

      

      You will see a pop up appring for confirmation

      Press Y

      

      You can test the configuration by clicking Test Management Network

      

   How to add a host to a cluster in vCenter

   1. Right click on the cluster and click on Add host

      

      Give the host name and root password. Click on Next accept the thumbprint.

      

      You will see the security alert for sha1 thumbprint click on OK.

      

      Click on Next

      

      Click on Finish

      Finally you will be able to see your host added in the cluster

      

.

One of the amazing benefits about VMworld is you get to see things which are open secret. We all know that the next version of esxi will be out but I got an opportunity to see it running on on the ARM booth on VMworld Europe.
The guys had around 7 different demos running on the same booth.
The one i have shown in the video are the ESXi version 6.9 on arm hardware and ESXi 7.0.0 Raspberry Pi enjoy watching!

Don’t forget to watch this quick video of the demo

ESX version 6.9.2 running on arm hardware

Arm Booth with multiple demos

Hi All, today I am going to explain how we can leverage the Hot add CPU and Memory feature on a Virtual Machine. This can be a very handy feature if we are running a production environment that cannot allow downtime.

Today I am going to cover the following topics.

What is Hot Plug CPU

What is Hot Plug Memory

Perquisite to enable

How to enable the settings

What is Hot Plug CPU

Hot Plug CPU is a technique that can dynamically increase the cpu cores for a VM that supports HOT add CPU. This is however depended on the guest OS which you are running. I have found on Linux based CentOS /Red Hat any version above 6.5 supports this feature.

How can we forget Microsoft Windows Server? Dont worry any OS from 2012 above are fully supported. ( 2012 R2/ 2016 and 2019 )

What is Hot Plug Memory

Dynamically increasing the memory of a running VM is hotplug memory. this is fully supported from Linux servers Red Hat / Centos based from 6.5 and above and Windows server above 2012.

Perquisite to Enable Hot Add

1. The virtual machine has a guest operating system that supports Memory hot-add functionality.
2. The virtual machine is using hardware version 7 or later.
3. VMware Tools is installed.
4. Power off the Virtual Machine to enable hot-add.Can be scripted with

PowerCLI, can be used to enable this on a lot of VM’s to make our life easy. However, we need to power off for the settings to take effect.

A swift Google search will point you some good scripts disclaimer Please test it on a test VM before running on development or production servers.

Note the hot add feature required a full power off and on operation on VM, not a reboot. ( reboot will not work)

httpss://code.vmware.com/forums/2530/vsphere-powercli#573518

httpss://

Function Enable-vCpuAndMemHotAdd($vm){
$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$extra1 = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue
$extra1.Key=”mem.hotadd”
$extra1.Value=”true”
$vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra1
$extra2 = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue
$extra2.Key=”vcpu.hotadd”
$extra2.Value=”true”
$vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra2
$vm.Extensiondata.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec)
}
Get-Content “c:\listofvms.txt” | %{
$vm = Get-VM -Name $_
Enable-vCpuAndMemHotAdd $vm
}

You can also find a really neet script which I like a lot on this website: virtuallythatguy.co.uk/how-to-set-vm-hot-plug-for-memory-and-cpu-vcpu-and-vmem-hot-plug-using-powercli/

Vmware Settings Expand the CPU

CPU Hot Plug

Edit Settings for the VM, expand the CPU on the CPU Hot Plug check Enable CPU Hot Add.

Hot Plug Memory

Edit Settings for the VM, expand the Memory on the Memory Hot Plug check Enable.

The limitation with Memory increase

Always remember that if the memory is under 3 GB Memory can not be increased above 4 without power off and increase to 4 GB or higher.

YouTube Videos

Hi All, I just decided to collect all the Sessions on one blog post so that it’s easy for you to go through. We have almost done 40 % of the content which I wanted to deliver. So if you have been following my blog and YouTube Channel well done.

I also would like to thank my subscribers I get motivated by seeing the numbers grow

Also, I would like to remind those who have not subscribed please do so. I publish 2 videos every week and be sure to hit the notification bell so you don’t miss on new content.

So let’s get started shall we, VMware have announced on 5th Feb 2019 that they are no longer going to have a re-certification requirement which was previously for 2 years. more info on this can be found on my previous post.

Certification Path

1. VMware Tutorial for Beginners

2. VMware Tutorial for Beginners what is Virtualization?

Hey All in this video I will take you through some basics of virtualization, starting from some introduction to types of hypervisors.

What is #Virtualization?

Overview #Type1 and# Type2 Type1 #Bare Metal Virtualization

installing the virtualization software VMM on a physical server ie. ESXi

Type 2 #Hosted Virtualization ( installing Virtualization emulator on the host OS like Windows 7, WIndows 10 eg. VMware player, VMware work station, Oracle virtual box.

Further, we can classify the virtualization in three important categories

3. VMware Tutorial for Beginners, what is cloud?

Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisor

Runs directly on the bare metal ( No host OS) Direct access to CPU and Memory resources

We get Better performance, Server consolidation

Servers are used more efficiently value for money Saves on carbon footprint electricity and AC cooling cost. and Easy to manage.

Different types of Service Model

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service

Examples Infrastructure as a Service Google cloud, Amazon Web Services, Azure, Rack Space.

Platform as a Service Google app engine, bring your data and application Software as a Service Email, Dropbox, Skype, Whatsapp, Google apps Microsoft Office 365.

4. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 3: installing vSphere 6.7

Session 3 How to connect ESXi to vCenter

1. Download the vSphere Hypervisor from www.vmware.com

2. For the purpose of Demo Install nested ESX ( on Virtual Machine) 3. Configure IPaddress and basic Networks

4. How to connect to the ESX server using a web-client How to add vSphere ESX server to a vCenter

5. VMware tutorial beginners Session 4 vCenter Server

6. VMware tutorial beginners Session 4 vCenter Server Installation

In this video we are going to go through the fundamentals of vCenter Server understand the concept of what is PSC its function. Then we are going to download and install the vCenter Server.

Once successfully deployed, we will connect to it and add a ESXi Host.

Agenda:

PSC ( Platform Services Controler) vCenter with embeded PSC vCetner with external PSC Session

Download vCenter from www.vmware.com Session 4 Learn how to install VMware vCenter Server 6.7 PSC (Platform Services controller) was introduced with vCenter 6.0

The Platform Services controller is responsible for the following infrastructure security functions vCenter Single Sign-On, licensing, Certificate management, etc.

Deployment Type Tiny (up to 10 hosts, 100 VMs) – 2 CPUs, 10 GB RAM. Small (up to 100 hosts, 1000 VMs) – 4 CPUs, 16 GB RAM. Medium (up to 400 hosts, 4000 VMs) – 8 CPUs, 24 GB RAM. Large (up to 1000 hosts, 10,000 VMs) – 16 CPUs, 32 GB RAM. X-Large (up to 2000 hosts, 35,000 VMs) – 24 CPUs, 48 GB RAM – new to v6.5. Installation options Install – for a new fresh installation Upgrade – (6.0 or 6.5 to 6.7) Migrate – (Windows) Restore – corrupt vCenter

7. VMware Tutorial for Beginners Session 5 Create a Virtual Machine

8. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 6: Deploying an OVF/OVA UCS Manager Platform Emulator

9. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 7: Introducing the HTML 5 Client

10. VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 8 : What is a Template ?

11. VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 9 : What is a Clone

12. VMware Tutorial for Beginners | Session 10 Working with VMware Snapshots demo Linux password reset

13. VMware tutorial beginners Session 11 VMware Settings vCPU Memory and Disk

14. VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 12 VMware Memory Management

15. VMware Tutorial Beginners  | Session 13 VMware Tools Installation

In this session, we are going to discuss VMware Tools. What is Vmware Tools (VMTools) Benefits of VMTools How to check if we are running the up to date version

How to Install VMTools

What is VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine’s guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine.

You can use the Windows Easy Install Linux Easy Install feature to install

Upcoming Sessions:

I am planning to deliver another 16 sessions that will cover the following content

Advance features of Hot Add CPU and Hot plug Memory.

Datastore and Shared Storage

VMFS 5 and VMFS 6 ( No migration tool to upgrade)

Advance Troubleshooting Performance monitoring CPU, RAM, Network and disk, also look at Task, Alerts, Events.

Networking Standard vSwitch

Networking Distributed vSwitch

Traffic – Management Traffic, vMotion and Fault-Tolerant, VM-Traffic(production).

Migration using vMotion (Compute) and Storage vMotion (storage) (live demo)

Cluster Configuration, High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), EVC Mode (live demo)

VMware Security and Compliance.

VMware Update Manager -Maintenance Patching the ESX host.

VMDS –(VMware Download server for downloading patches via proxy for restricted environments with firewall)

Introduction to Advance troubleshooting using vROPs

Getting started with PowerCLI

Create My learn account

Resources VMware HOL

This will help beginners to understand the concept of VMware Technology and most importantly the terminology. Quite a few of the people who are interested are from different backgrounds and in entry-level, IT positions so they are keen to learn and ask me a question. As of today, I have got nearly 350 subscribers on my YouTube Channel. httpss://www.youtube.com/user/miquraishi