Licensing Question - 4 Physical Processors

[Squirrelish]

I am not sure if this is the place, but I had a question on licensing for vSphere Essentials.

I have a single, DL580 server (with four physical processors) and would like to get ESXi 6.0 and the VCSA (simply because I want to use the latest-and-greatest VM versions for PCI passthrough) - everything about the free edition of ESXi is fine, except no VCSA (which makes me want to look elsewhere for a solution - I don't have any HA needs).

However, the Essentials Kit lists the following:

License Entitlement - "3 servers with up to 2 processors each"

Am I reading this right? Can I really only use up to two CPU licenses on one host? The free edition appears to let me use all 4!

Thanks in advance!

[DavoudTeimouri]

Hi,

Why you want to have vCenter server when you have only one server? I think, ESXi free version is enough for you.

[martinriley]

So you essentially get a 6 CPU license- I think you'll need to check with VMware before you buy whether you get one code that entitles you to 6 CPUs in which case it would be fine, or whether you get 3 codes for 2 CPUs each.  I understand the limit with the Essentials Kit is more around limiting the number of hosts as opposed to limiting the number of physical CPUs you can use in a host, but I could be wrong.

On the other hand, you could install ESXi free on your DL580, then spin up 2 (or 3 in fact) ESXi VMs and license your virtual hosts with the Essentials Kit- I don't think there's anything stopping you doing this?

vM

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VCAP-DCD / VCAP-DCA / VCP-CLOUD / VCP-DT / VCP5 / VCP4

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vMustard.com

[Squirrelish]

Unless you know of a way to get VCSA free, I don't see how I can do PCI passthrough of use newer VM version features. Do you disagree?

[Squirrelish]

vM,

Thanks for the reply! I believe thats the approach I need to take. I cant imagine a per-CPU license having a grouping cap, so I'll see what sales has to say about it. The other approach is for me to just leave the free ESXi version on the server and just use the VCSA license? Maybe thats OK too (except I dont think I can add another host with the last 2 CPU keys). Confusing for sure, and without knowing exactly how the licensing works its a total WAG.

[martinriley]

Yep should be a good option also- I can't see how it would benefit VMware in any way to allow 3 x dual CPU hosts but not 1 x quad CPU host, especially since you will essentially be under-utilizing the licenses you have paid for!

Good luck

[suvrobhattachar]

VMware KB: Licensing ESXi 6.x and vCenter Server 6.x

[MRoushdy]

Hello,

About the "Essentials Plus" license, it's an economical package, gives you vCenter and three nodes (two CPU sockets each), so it;s about hosts, not a total of 6 CPUs, so you won;t be able to license a single host with more than two CPUs, even if you have only one physical server to license.

as long as you aren't interested in HA, just keep using the free edition, but the free edition has disadvantages, specially with other vendors, so you can't backup your VMs with Veeam or veritas unless you a fully licensed host.

[Jimmy15]

Essential Plus is for Entry level users , which provide redundancy with 3xdual core CPU Hosts, rather then one quad core host.

regards

Pankaj Sharma 

[Squirrelish · Accepted solution]

Follow up (surprised at some of the matter-of-fact "answers" by the way).

This is possible with the Essentials Kit. From VMware licensing:

"I would like to inform you that vSphere Essentials Kit shall be used on 3 Host(s) with - 6 CPU(s) <Processors> in total. vCenter server essentials can only manage 3 hosts = 6 Processors / CPU(s).

If you have 1 Host(s) of 2 processors and another host of 4 processors you could still license and manage Host(s)."

The vCenter Server license is the limiting factor.