From experience - the Hardware keys will not work on VMWare ESX servers.

There is not native support for USB on the guest servers of an ESX machine. You can utilize something like a IP Ethernet to USB adapter to add USB ports to a guest server, and there are a couple of server/client utilites that will allow sharing of USB ports over the network from another physical server, but the HASP Hardware keys won't work.

It seems to be an issue with the HASP keys - www.aladdin.com is who makes the keys. I've spent 2 days and even purchased a Digi USB-IP adapter trying to get System Manager to work on a Virtual Machine. End result - System Manager will install, but will not be able to see the USB Key.

On a side note on these USB keys, I tried to install System Manager on my SIP / CT-Gateway server, and it would work, but because the SIP/UM/CT-Gateway were licensed on 1 usb key, and the System Manager on a 2nd key, I would have issues with Both keys inserted into the system at the same time. Seems like the Inter-Tel applications would only see what ever key was inserted in 1st. Talk about a major pain - I was trying to avoid a dedicated server for System Manager when I only have 3 nodes. Bottom line, System manager sucked (in my opinion), so I gave up.