Lic and Capacity question on ESXi

[ITatRTM]

Hi all,

After successfully running VMware Server 1.x for many years, upper management has agreed to budget some money for a large VMWare server.

If we purchase a Dell quad core server, like a DELL R710 (Intel Xeon 5550), how many VMs can I run on this server?

Assuming Dual Quad Core chips, 2 x 4 = 8 processors, can I run 10 small WinXP VMs? Or am I limited to 8 due to the number of processors?

Also, if we use the free ESXi, do I have any licensing costs?

[J1mbo]

You can overcommit CPU resource no problem, how many VMs will however depend entirely on what they are doing. CPU resource is not usually the problem though, more likely the bottleneck will be in availability of physical RAM (and then disk speed).

Using free-licensed ESXi there will be no licensing costs from vmware at all, but Windows XP VMs each need a license (and a license on the device used to access them).

Hope that helps.

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[johnnyknoxville]

you should run 10 XPs without any problem on that machine, even more....

maybe this could help http://communities.vmware.com/thread/147964;jsessionid=D817BA130554068AF40D81F685749132

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Forums - It really is going to depend on the load being carried by VMs - but rule of thumb for vSphere is4-6 vCPU per physical core - so from a CPU perspective you should be able to 32-48 single vCPU VMs on that host assuming there is sufficient memory -

Yes Free ESXi as a standalone server will not have any additional licenses cost - when you want to take advantage of other VMware features like vmotion, DRS, HA vCenter - you will need to license those features -

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[a_p_]

If you are going to use local disks as the datastore for the XP clients, make sure you get a supported RAID controller with battery backed write cache. Without write cache disk I/O could become a severe bottleneck and decrease the overall performance.

André

[AndreTheGiant]

I suggest to go to a bare metal solution like ESX/ESXi instead of use VMware Server.

The ESXi free does not have cost for the hypervisor part.

But there are some limitation compared to the ESX or the licensed version:

Andre

[ITatRTM]

Thank you for all the great replys.

Now, back to licensing.

A co-worker recommended I purchase the vSphere Essentials, which is on sale until next week, for $495.

http://app.connect.vmware.com/e/es.aspx?s=524&e=13114219&elq=f721ed1934554d7a87ee15f6d9b384c9&OPENID...

Sorry for the question, but why would we want to do that if ESXi is free?

Also, am I correct in that this vSphere Essentials only allows me to run 3 VMs? How would I license my other 5 machines?

Maybe a better question would be, what do I get with vSphere Essentials that I dont get with plan old ESXi?

(We can afford to buy a licensed version if needed, but I still don't see why)

Thanks in advance.

-Tom

[dburgess · Accepted solution]

If you are looking at a single 'host' then ESXi (free edition) maybe the way to go. I think the posts above give good guidance on number of guests per core but I would agree 4/6 uniprocessor XP machines/core should be acheivable with the right RAM and disk iops.

If you want the management features of Virtual Center or you decide to go to more than one 'host' then a licensed version might be more appropriate.

Essentials is an entry price bundle for ESX and Virtual Center and is limited up to 3 hosts. I think you are mixed up with what we call guests i.e. the virtual machines that you are going to run on the host,for those you will need to make sure they are licensed as you would do for physical XP desktops.

Lastly - if you are just running desktop operating systems on top of ESX then you may find the 'View' bundles to be good value. You get the ESX and Virtual Center technologies but on a per desktop basis, you would have to look into what the minimum entry price for this solution is though. You could choose to use or not use the actual View software for connecting to the VM's but it still might work out better for you to do it this way. If you want to run server based operating systems along side the desktops this approach would not be appropriate.

[ITatRTM]

Thanks for the reply.

I was obviously confused

Essentials will allow us to run up to 3 ESXi servers, with unlimited guests (limited by hardware, not license). This sounds like a fair deal then.

We do plan to run a mix of small Dev and QA servers, with some small XP test clients, so Essentials seems to be a good match for our needs.

Thanks again!

[dburgess]

No probs - Essentials is limited to a total of 12 sockets so 3 x 4 or 6 x 2 but that sounds like it will be plenty for what you need. Ilooked into the View bundle the logic is correct but you have servers and the entry point is a 100 desktops so would be more expensive to do it that way in any case..

dB