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4 Replies Last post: Aug 21, 2009 11:00 AM by dougm  

How many of What Part is Needed posted: Jul 20, 2009 9:04 AM

Click to view dgoldsmith's profile Lurker
dgoldsmith
4 posts since
Nov 9, 2004

Looking at the web site, its not obvious what is needed to set up a functioning vCenter Server with Heartbeat in terms of purchasing licenses.

vCenter Server is roughly $5k. vCenter Server Server Heartbeat for 1 vCenter Server is roughly $10K.

Is the Server Heartbeat add-on the only extra purchase required or do you need to purchase 2 vCenter Server licenses and 2 vCenter Server Heartbeat licenses?

If 2 of each are required, that moves your vCenter Server cost from $5K to $30K. Is there really a six-fold advantage over doing vCenter Server as a VM and using VMware HA or VMware FT to minimize/eliminate outages of the management server?

Thanks,
David Goldsmith

Re: How many of What Part is Needed

1. Jul 20, 2009 10:55 AM in response to: dgoldsmith
Click to view jkasal's profile Novice
jkasal
10 posts since
Jun 7, 2008

Hi David,

You only need to purchase 1 License of vCenter Server and 1 license of vCenter Server Heartbeat. Since the "Secondary" vCenter server is not active nor available to the ESX hosts it will fall under the "Primary" vCenter servers license. Only 1 vCenter server is active at any time.

Hope this helps. I had the same question when I was in the pre-purchase stage.

Jkasal

Re: How many of What Part is Needed

2. Jul 20, 2009 11:10 AM in response to: dgoldsmith
Click to view justinking's profile Enthusiast
justinking
32 posts since
Apr 4, 2007

David, the vCenter Server Heartbeat license is an addon to an existing vCenter Server license and is pretty much all you need. You will not need a second vCenter server license or a second SQL Server license as this is covered under the licensing agreements, however the only exception being the Windows OS license for the second server.

There is a bundled accelaration kit for $12,995 which will include vCenter Server license and vCenter Server Heartbeat license.

VMware HA is fully supported however 80-90% of the deployed customer base use vCenter Server on physical servers where options for complete protection are limited. vCS Heartbeat does compliment VMware HA by adding application specific awarness to take proactive and corrective action to application issues within the VM when virtualized. VMware FT is currently limited to 1vCPU where the requirements for vCenter Server are for 2CPU.

Justin King
Product Specialist - VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat

http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-server-heartbeat/

Re: How many of What Part is Needed

3. Aug 21, 2009 7:09 AM in response to: justinking
Click to view dougm's profile Enthusiast
dougm
55 posts since
Jul 18, 2005

Justin,

Besides adding the license key through the "configure server" wizard, what else is required? I have two installs and both have the same error within the Heartbeat console. "VMware Virtual Center License Not available"

Thanks.

Re: How many of What Part is Needed

4. Aug 21, 2009 11:00 AM in response to: dougm
Click to view dougm's profile Enthusiast
dougm
55 posts since
Jul 18, 2005

Found the answer, it was in the "plugins" section. The username and password provided at initial configuration did not get passed through to the Plugin section for the VirtualCenterNFPplugin.dll. As soon as you edit the plugin and provide valid credentials, the error will go away.

I found this on two installations.


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