They matched.
And somewhere on a dusty shelf in the data center, she labeled a USB drive in sharpie: vmware esxi iso download 6.5
At 2:15 AM, Aria stood in the cold data center, the roar of cooling fans washing over her. She inserted the USB into the R720, booted from the ISO, and navigated the yellow-and-grey installer. They matched
Aria needed the original VMware ESXi 6.5 ISO—the exact build, not 6.5U1 or U2, but the specific GA version that matched the host’s firmware. She opened her browser, logged into the VMware Customer Connect portal, and navigated to "Downloads." booted from the ISO