It is possible to gather DSA data from an IBM server running ESXi without having to boot with a bootable CD or reboot the server at all.

From any machine, Windows or linux, you can run the latest release of the DSA tool, then reference the ESXi server using commandline parameters when running the DSA tool.

In order for this to work, you need to put the ESXi server in remote technical support mode. This is done via the ESXi console.

Once activated, download and run the latest tool on your favourite platform (for Windows, choose the Windows version, etc.). Rather than opening running it by simply launching the application, fire up a command prompt and launch it with parameters.

>ibm_utl  ...