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DhaanMani
Contributor
Contributor

Free Esxi to Vcenter migration, What license required ?

Hello,

We are using Esxi free edition in 3 servers, We want to use vCenter.

What are the license, We need to buy minimally to use Vcenter. We cant afford to pay more, But we are ready to pay what is required.

So, We are thinking of buying vCenter license and attach three servers where Esxi 6.5 running (free Esxi). 

So, It is possible to do it ? Please help.

1 Reply
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Welcome to the Community,

ESXi hosts with a free Hypervisor license cannot be added/manager by vCenter Server.

Anyway, assuming that your 3 hosts do not have more than 2 physical CPUs each, you may want to take a look at a "VMware vSphere Essentials Kit". This Kit includes a license for vCenter Server, as well as 6 CPU licenses for ESXi (for up to 3 hosts with 2 CPus).

Since the ESXi binaries are the same for all editions, you'd only need to assign the Essentials licenses to your hosts, and then add them to the new vCenter Server.

For details like features and pricing, see e.g. Server Virtualization with VMware vSphere

André