Maybe you are lamenting the fact that ESXi currently does not support USB. Maybe you tell it to someone or adjust your thinking because of it a few times a week. A great many people are making a great deal of noise about it, and since the competition is so fierce in the virtualization market right now, I suspect it will be a non-issue very soon. I dearly hope so anyway. However, for the time being we keep running into potential deal-busters because of this very irritating issue.

We’ve heard about the Digi AnywhereUSB device – but hey man, that thing’s expensive, and I shouldn’t have to buy one or force my customer to buy one, should I?

I thought these devices were $350. Today I learned that their LIST price may be in that area, but their retail channel pricing is much lower. These devices can be had for as little as $250. External USB fax modems are cheap. In the same vein, older battery backup devices or things that use serial ports can be connected to over the network with a device that costs $110.

You can find them here:
Digi AnywhereUSB
Moxa NPort 5110 (multi-port models are also available)

Sure, this is inconvenient as hell, but let’s do a reality check. In order to connect a SCSI tape drive to a server, you need a SCSI controller card. We regularly sell SCSI cards to customers for $250 and nobody blinks. It’s just a device you need to make things work. Period. Nobody whines about it, because it is just the way it goes.

So I am here to say that we should not be so high-strung about the ESXi USB issue. We should instead treat it as one of those little necessities. Instead of asking in a hesitant, fearful tone whether there will be any local USB or serial devices involved, we should just mention that if they will need to do this, they will need another device to make it work. If the topic seems to cause consternation, shrug it off and minimize it. We should say “Yeah, but you can pick one of those up only $250.” like it is nothing – because, really, it isn’t a big deal.

Let’s put things into perspective. Many IT professionals charge their customers anywhere in the range of $100 to $150 per hour for labor. Even if the customer is unwilling to spend that money on hardware (even though they spend much more on labor), the IT professional could easily eat the cost of buying the device, write it off as an expense, and bill their customer for the installation and configuration of the device. Or they could just let it be absorbed in the bigger picture as time progresses. A good customer will accept that it is necessary, and buy it. A good IT professional will explain it to a customer in a way that will facilitate this, or just provide the device and be sure to bill enough to cover the expense. An IT “professional” who is not very good at what they do will make a big deal out of it and raise the customer’s fears and resistance to virtualization. Let’s set an example for them.

When someone wrings his/her hands and makes strangling noises about a little $110 device or even a $250 device to go along with a new server and a migration project, that person is being short-sighted, overly dramatic, or is looking for objections to Virtualization because it is outside their comfort zone – or all of the above. Those people need to shut up and get on with it. And stop whining.

Tags: anywhereusb, digi, ESXi, USB

In the virtualization world, one really big pain in the neck is the fact that ESXi currently does not support USB devices such as security dongles, printers, etc.

Tags: anywhereusb, digi, usb over ethernet