VMware just officially released VMware ESX 3i, you can download the installable iso here. For now it’s only supported on Dell Poweredge 2950(Full) and HP DL380G5(Experimental) servers. Check out the installable, I booted it within VMware Workstation and right until I tried to boot a VM it worked fine, than it crashed.

There are already a whole bunch of known issues with 3i, besure to read before installing it in a production environment, I’ve listed a couple below:

• Remote CLI 1.1 Released with ESX Server 3i Version 3.5 is Incompatible with VI Perl 1.0 (KB 1003161)
• ESX Server 3i Installable Can Boot Only from Hard Disk With Lowest or Highest SCSI ID (KB 1003387)
• Jumbo Frames Are Not Available on VMkernel Networking Interfaces in ESX Server 3i (KB 1003034)
• ESX Server 3i DHCP Configuration Might Fail at Startup (KB 1003007)
• Restart or Shutdown of an ESX Server 3i Host Does Not Fail Over Virtual Machines to Other Hosts in the Cluster (KB 1003009)
• Virtual Machine on RDM Shared Storage Becomes Invalid After Migration from ESX Server 2.5x to ESX Server 3.5 or ESX Server 3i (KB 1003092)
• Configuration Information Lost If ESX Server 3i Embedded Is Not Shut Down Properly (KB 1003137)
• An ESX Server 3i Host Cannot Accommodate Simultaneous VI Updates (KB 1003073)
• Physical Serial and Parallel Ports Are Not Supported in ESX Server 3i version 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 (KB 1003129)