Can I run View Premier on Vsphere Essentials / Essentials plus

[keviom]

Hi,

I am looking at View for our 65 user enviroment where most of the users only use office programs and an SQL application. I currently use a 2 host VSphere essentials plus setup for my servers, which will remain seperate to the VDI servers.

I am trying to work out the best/cheapest ways for achieving this. My question is can I set up 3 new hosts, dedicated to the view desktops, and purchase Vsphere Essentials (Plus) and the view premier add on rather than the view premier starter bundle which includes vsphere for desktops.

I had been told that View really needs Vsphere Enterprise, but is this really true for 65 desktops.

I am asking this question as the $100 per user difference in price betwen the bundle with Vsphere for desktops and the bundle without would mean we could save a fortune by buying essentials (plus) and using this.

Thanks in advance

Kevin

[mittim12]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't.   The Add on licenses for designed for environments that already had existing vSphere licenses.   I would still recommend sending the question to the VMware license team to validate the answers you get on the forums.

[asrinivas]

View premier is a bundle, so it comes with unlimited access to enterprise plus license for running desktop workload and needed infrastructure. Why would you want to downgrade yourself?

[keviom]

Thanks for the reply, but as I said in my original post, we only have 65 users, this is not likely to grow in the near future, and never to anything massive. What would enterprise bring to the table that essentials / essentials plus wouldn't in such a small setup. One of the reasons for considering the method suggested is the costing's.

View Premier starter bundle / additinal packs  = $250 per user

So total cost for 65 users = $16250

Using Vsphere Essentials (Plus)

View premier add on Packs = $150 per user = $9750

View essentials = $495

Or Essentials plus = $3495

So total for 65 users either  = $10295 or $13245

There fore a saving of between $6000 - £3000.

I used the dollar pricing as this was quickest to get from the VMware site, and I realise support costs will need to be worked out, but for small numbers like I am looking at the numbers seem to point one way, and I need to have arguments for both options to present to the bean counters so I get the correct solution.

[asrinivas]

Yes, this could be done..See the FAQ section for details

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-View45-Pricing-Licensing-Support-FAQ.pdf

[keviom]

Thanks for the link. I had read the FAQs before posting, but noticed it only seemed to talk about Vsphere editions under sections on View Manager. I just wanted to confirm I wasn't going to have problems running 65 Workstations on Essentials (plus).