I’ve been running OH on a VM with the USB controller passed in for about a year.
I had some issues when I first started but learned that that ESXi 6.5 has a buggy USB driver. I learned on this forum how to downgrade that driver (it’s like two commands) and it has been rock solid ever since. The only problem I’ve had is remembering to plug the dongle into the same USB outlet each time I remove it to include a new device. If you were running on ESXi 6.5, see ESXi 6.5 and Zwave Help, in particular @smar’s reply
At some point, I will probably do Share Z-wave dongle over IP (USB over IP using ser2net / socat ) guide with a spare RPi 0W or perhaps that demo unit Banana Pi M2 Zero they sent me to test running OH on. With this I can move the controller around on battery power when necessary and it would be a first step towards experimenting with some failover scenarios. This is also a good approach (or getting a commercial hub like a Vera) if your server is locked in a closet in the basement or otherwise in a bad location to have your USB controller relative to your ZWave/Zigbee devices.
@Qliver, there are lots of options and approaches. The best ones will highly depend on your specific situation.