This is something we have been asking for years and it was only available up until now in VMware View. We can finally connect a USB device to a VM running on ESXi. No additional licensing required!!!!!
From the What's New in vSphere 5.0
Could it be that simple? Well actually yes it is.
This is my host (in this case the free vSphere Hypervisor)
Here you have a VM Virtual Hardware version 8 (I was not able to test with Version 7 so if you would like to try and add a comment here - that would be great!!)
Add a USB Controller to the VM
You can choose either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0
And here is the VM Configuration after the addition.
After adding the USB controller to the VM, these parameters are added to the VM's configuration (.vmx) file.
After the machine has come up it now has a USB controller in its device manager.
In the vSphere Client I can now attach USB devices that are connected to the my computer to the VM running on this ESX host.
When I connect the USB device to the VM I get this warning - which is similar to the one you get when doing the same with Workstation
Once connected to the VM - it shows up in the Device manager and in this case also as a local drive.
And of course the details are updated in the .vmx itself
This opens up a whole new world of connecting peripheral devices to the VM. I do wonder though what it will mean to all of the companies that have created solutions that were able to solve these issues until now with a USB-over-IP solution. (Digi)
It would be interesting to hear what kind of use you could make of this new feature in your environment. Feel free to drop a comment below.
4 comments:
At my previous employer, we used Digi devices to present USB licensing dongles to VMs. The Digi's were fairly "dumb" devices, but they were useful because it allowed us to virtualize servers & applications requiring USB licensing, and do it in a way that still offered cluster/location flexibility to the VMs.
Guess I said all that to say there's still a place in the datacenter for USB over IP. Hopefully these improvements in USB ~> VM connectivity will force companies like Digi to innovate higher levels of flexibility into their products.
You have to keep the VM on the same host as the USB device though correct? So a vMotion to another host would break the USB. That's where devices like USB Anywhere will continue to have a niche, at least until ESX is able to redirect USB across hosts.
We use USB Anywhere boxes with our 4.1 cloud for licensing dongles as well as a Huawei SMS dongle for NMS notifications.
I am not sure I understand your comment. I had connected the USB stick to my desktop - not the ESX host.
Actually vMotioining the VM would be an interesting one to check
hurrah! now i can get that scanner with the Windows 98 "only" driver working. which is why i got into vmware, 2 years ago. and hook up my printer too. sweet.
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