Point of vCenter cluster with Essential license

[Zabec]

Hi!

I was wondering what is the point of vCenter cluster vs. placing 3 ESXi servers directly into DataCenter. As far as I've learned, benefits of cluster are HA and DRS, that Essential license does not cover. On the other hand, without DRS, clusters lack the Resource pool functionality, so vApps are not supported, still, they are supported if servers are not part of the cluster.

Thank you for your answers

[a_p_]

You are right, the Essentials Kits doesn't offer a whole lot of features. However, it offers e.g. centralized management of the hosts, access management (permissions), Update Manger and - not to forget - a central target for e.g. VM based backup applications.

André

[Troy_Clavell]

using vCenter would be beneficial for a central point of administration,  But, yes, DRS/HA are not part of the Essentials Kit

[Zabec]

Hi.

Thanks for your answers. Yes, but if I put ESXi hosts directly under DataCenter, not as a cluster, I still have centralized management of all hosts, updating with 3 hosts is not much of a trouble and our backup system is VM OS based, independent of vCenter. All 3 hosts are connected to EMC VNXe3100 iSCSI storage. Accessing same DataStore on more servers at a time, that are not part of a cluster, is probably not recommended.

What if I take one host from cluster and put it directly under DataCenter? Will need to be extra carefull with DataStores on that host, but will regain vApp functionality. I will still be able to manage that host from vCenter server. Will I lose any other benefits?