Essentials Plus vCenter linked mode to vCenter standard?

[thorwitt]

Is it possible (and allowed) to install the vCenter foundation version from the essentials plus bundle in a linked mode to connect to vCenter standard in our central location?

like this...

vCenter standard <- 5x vCenter foundation linked mode

We want to manage all our remote locations from our central vCenter standard.

If its possible, what about the WAN bandwith we should use for this.

[Steve_Johnston]

Thorwitt it is a shame no one has answered you previously.

I have a customer who has vCenter Standard at their main site and vCenter Essentials (the one you get with the essentials plus kit) elsewhere.  They like you wanted to manage it all from one central location.

I realised from looking through the forums and also some marketing material that you need Standard for linked mode but I was curious if you just needed it for the first vCenter instance.  As it turns out all vCenters used in linked mode need have a Standard license.

Out of curiousity I tried to join an Essentials vCenter to the Standard vCenter instance.  I got the following in the jointool log file which proves it doesn't work.

[2011-06-23 09:46:03 SEVERE] Preview of Operation "Join instance VMwareVCMSDS" failed: : Action: Prepare for Join
Action: Decoding license key to determine linked mode capability
Problem: The license for this VirtualCenter does not have the linked mode capability.

So bottom line - All vCenters need to be of the Standard license version to use linked mode.

Cheers

Steven

[adfrancis]

As an up date to this post ( i realize its a few years dated), VMware has kitted together Essentials and Essentials Plus kits to create a new kit Remote Office and Branch Office (ROBO) which effectively allows Essentials and Essentials Plus vCenter editions to be linked to a single vCenter Standard for centralized management.

[vogtmatt]

It's still the case, as of 5.5 Update 2 that all vCenter Servers participating in Linked Mode must be licensed at vCenter Server Standard:

Linked Mode Prerequisites for vCenter Server

"To join a Linked Mode group the vCenter Server must be in evaluation mode or licensed as a Standard edition. vCenter Server Foundation and vCenter Server Essentials editions do not support Linked Mode."

[Avon]

This is still the case with 6.x

"Enhanced Linked Mode requires the vCenter Server Standard licensing level, and is not supported with vCenter Server Foundation or vCenter Server Essentials. "

[Dwayne_CT]

Hello everyone, I wonder if this is still the case where you need vCenter Standard and above license for Enhanced Link Mode?  I have vCenters 6.7 with VMware vCenter Server 6 Essentials