While waiting, she re-read the release notes for 10.0.0. No critical CVEs she didn’t already know. Known caveat: the initial dataplane might take 8 minutes to stabilize after first boot. She made a note. Patience would be a weapon tonight.
She configured the management IP via CLI: download pa-vm-esx-10.0.0.ova
The physical PA-5220 coughed one last time at 2:17 AM and went silent. The VM didn't flinch. Throughput: 3.2 Gbps steady. Session table: 1.7 million active flows. CPU on the ESXi host: 34%. While waiting, she re-read the release notes for 10