Number of VMWare Licenses vSphere 7 Standard required for a server with 2 CPUs

[sguerrerov92]

Hello dear community

I want to share with all of you that I am taking my first steps in the world of virtualization, and on this path, I would greatly appreciate your valuable assistance.

I am currently in the process of deploying a cluster made up of three ESXi servers. Each of these servers is equipped with two processing units (CPUs) and is licensed with VMWare vSphere 7 Standard. I have heard comments regarding the possible need to assign such a license to each CPU, but I would like to receive your confirmation and know if this is correct.

In case your answer is affirmative, I would greatly appreciate your guidance to understand how to carry out this assignment, since in the license section of each EXSi host client it only allows me to add one license.

Attached the specifications of the servers:

CPU
Logical processors: 72
Processor type: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5220 CPU @ 2.20GHz
Sockets: 2
Cores per socket: 18
Hyperprocessing: Yes, enabled

[markey165 · Accepted solution]

@sguerrerov92 

Here is the official licensing page for vSphere 7

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vcenterhost.doc/GUID-7AFCC64B-7D94-...

In summary, you will need 1 license for each physical processor. However note the physical processor(s) must not exceed 32 cores. If it does, you will need an additional license for each processor that exceeds that number.

In your case it sounds like you have 12 cores per processor (within the limit) and 6 processors, therefore you will need 6 licences.

HTH

[sguerrerov92]

Hi @markey165 

Thank very munch for your response. 

So, given what has been discussed and considering the specifications of my servers, it seems to be necessary to assign two licenses to each host. However, I am still not completely clear on how to carry out this assignment, since when trying to do so, it is only possible for me to assign one license instead of the required two. Could you please clarify this issue a bit more??

[markey165]

So in your case, you need to license 3 hosts with 6 physical processors. So you would go to your account manager and purchase a vSphere 7 license for 6 CPUs.

What you actually receive is one license key, but it covers you for 6 sockets. That's why you can only add one key, because that's how it works 😊

See screenshot below of my current vSphere License. I have one vSphere key that covers me for 68 CPUs (ie Physical Processors). I have used 66, so I have 2 spare, which means i can add one more host (with 2 processors) before i reach capacity. Hopefully that makes sense?

[sguerrerov92]

@markey165 

It is clear to me, thank you very much for your excellent explanation. You saved my life.