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lchuakc
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Dear Friends: I need some help with regards to ESXI 5 Licensing.

My setup goes like this.

1 x Equallogic 4110 SAN with 7.2 TB raw storage on 10 Gbps ISCSI

3 x Dell Poweredge R620 with 2 x 6-8 cores cpu each and 32 GB of RAM

2 x Powerconnect 10 Gbps ISCSI switch

I am intending to run 14-15 hosts inside these 3 ESXI hosts and will require VMotion. The Dell sale person recommended the Standard Acceleration Kit with 8 CPUs but the cost of license means that I will need to cut down on the hardware which I would not like to do so.

I've done a search on VM Licensing and found the VMware vSphere Essentials Plus Kit that allows VMware vSphere 5 Essentials Plus Kit for 3 hosts (Max 2 processors per host) and 192 GB vRAM entitlement.

It seems that I can use the VMotion with this licensing as well? But I dun quite understand on the 192 GB vRAM entitlement? Does my hardware specs meet the requirements? 2 x 6-8 cores CPU / 32 GB Physical RAM on each host and the MAX number of ESXI host is 3 for my office. Thanks for the help.

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a_p_
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The 3 EXSI hosts will come with 64 GB RAM instead. I assumed that it  will still meet the requirements for Essential Plus licensing?

With the paid vSphere versions, it's not the physical memory that counts but the vRAM entitlement, which is the pooled sum of memory assigned to the powered on VMs (plus some overhead) With the 3 hosts (64GB each) you will most likely not run into any vRAM entitlement limits, since you will usually not run the hosts on the limit, but keep enough free resources on each host to be able to run all VMs in case one of the hosts fails.

André

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lchuakc
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I need some help regards to backup also.. I am currently using the Arcserve R15 SP1 to back up files to my LTO4 tape loader.. Which additional licenses do I need and the quantity of licenses if I wanna do a file level backup to my LTO4 tapes? I do have backup agents installed on the physical servers now. Can I uninstall these agents once I migrated them to virtual hosts?

Does my backup server needs a ISCSI connection to the SAN to be able to backup the Virtual Hosts? Thanks again.

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Argyle
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Yes you can vmotion with Essentials Plus. With Essentials Plus you get 32 GB RAM per CPU license which ends up in a "pool" that vCenter Essentials keep track of. It's 192GB RAM fror the cluster.You can have one server with 64 GB RAM another with 32 GB etc. as long as your total in the cluster of max 3 hosts is under 192 GB RAM.

It's max 2 physical CPUs per esxi host with this license so your servers are fine.

Regarding backup you can keep using agent backup agents inside the OS in each VM. It will add some extra load to your shared disks / SAN so you might want to have enough disks in the SAN to cover your IO needs. Other alternatives are VMware Data Recovery or Veeam Backup if you want to look at VM specific backups. It depends on your needs.

lchuakc
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Hi Argyle,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I really appreciate it. I 've been allocated more budget now.

The 3 EXSI hosts will come with 64 GB RAM instead. I assumed that it will still meet the requirements for Essential Plus licensing?

Thanks again..

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Argyle
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3 hosts with 64 GB RAM will be ok. It's the standard setup to reach 3x64 = 192 GB RAM.

a_p_
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The 3 EXSI hosts will come with 64 GB RAM instead. I assumed that it  will still meet the requirements for Essential Plus licensing?

With the paid vSphere versions, it's not the physical memory that counts but the vRAM entitlement, which is the pooled sum of memory assigned to the powered on VMs (plus some overhead) With the 3 hosts (64GB each) you will most likely not run into any vRAM entitlement limits, since you will usually not run the hosts on the limit, but keep enough free resources on each host to be able to run all VMs in case one of the hosts fails.

André

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lchuakc
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thanks frens.. if I need further help.. i will need to bother you guys again.. :smileylaugh:

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lchuakc
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I've planned the iSCSI connections.. Looks ok to you guys? 2012-04-28_024633.jpg

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a_p_
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IMO this looks ok. I only would use a /24 subnet mask. However, that's my personal way to do this.

André

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lchuakc
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Andre, is there anything with regards to performance when using /24? Or just a matter of the number of usable IPs? I forseen I will not run more than 3 ESXI for a long time. Smiley Wink

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a_p_
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Don't worry, there's no technical reason for this. It's just because 192.168.x.x is a private network and I never needed close to 255 private subnets in an environment.

André

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lchuakc
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Cheers Andre. Have a nice week end.. 

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