Processor licencing

[Ghell]

I recently bought ESX 3.5 Foundation for a 2 socket, quad core machine (Dell 2950 III). My subscription is active but all of the vsphere licences say 1 processor.

Does it really only support 1 socket? I am due to deploy the server soon and need to know if I should upgrade to 4 or not.

[mittim12]

If I'm not mistaken VMware changed their licensing model from a 2 processor license to a single processor license and then cut the price in half. You should be fine and should get two one processor licenses when upgradig to 4.0 licenses. If all else fails you could also simply ask your reseller to verify this for you.

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpful/Correct buttons to award points

[Ghell]

I don't have a reseller, I bought it on vmware.com.

The price is definitely not half of what it was. It is actually more than I paid for the 2 processor licence (because of exchange rates - if you ignore the exchange rates it is about the same price so definitely not half).

Assuming the upgrade to 4 should be free with an active subscription, can I just try upgrading and see how many licences I get or will this stop my 3.5 licence from working should I choose not to use 4?

Edit: I can't seem to log in to the main site anyway, when I try to login it says "The page you're looking for can't be found."

Message was edited by: Ghell

[mudha]

it is working and you can upgrade to ESX 4.0 without any problem, which mw=ethod you are using for upgradation?

[Penic_Albin · Accepted solution]

Hi Ghell,

you should have 2 single CPU licenses now for every VI3 license.

1 VI3 license = 2 vSphere licenses

New license model now cover 1 pCPU with 1 license.

vSphere 4 Foundation license is also limited to 6 cores per pCPU

Regards

[Ghell]

I will try to upgrade* and probably mark Penic's answer as correct when I confirm

.*as soon as I stop getting

"The page you're looking for can't be found." - ErrEngineDown

on the login page

[mittim12]

The upgrade to 4 should definitely be free with an active subscription and downloading the new 4.0 licenses will not have any affect on your 3.5 server as long as you don't replace any licenses on the server. Given you don't have a reseller you should use the vi-hotline form for licensing questions, though they are probably swamped at the moment.

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpful/Correct buttons to award points

[Penic_Albin]

Ghell, i suggest you that you check your license key status at

[Ghell]

Ghell, i suggest you that you check your license key status at

Unfortunately this is just another page that I get ErrEngineDown on.

I will try again later.

[MKguy]

VMware changed the licensing from selling licenses in 2CPU packs for VI3 to 1CPU in vSphere. You now purchase licenses for each socket at about half the price of the former 2 socket packs.

See http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/licensing.html for more info.

NOTE: VMware vSphere licenses are sold in 1-CPU increments whereas VMware Infrastructure 3.x licenses were sold in 2-CPU increments. The diagram below shows an example of the license counts and how they map.

[Ghell]

Thanks but I had already marked this as a correct answer from someone else.

The site went "down for maintenance" for a while and now that it is back up, most of my questions are already answered in there. For example, just going to the vSphere licence page (linked earlier but it wasn't working for me) shows that I have 2 cpu licences.

The only pages I can't access now are download links (for anything).

I try to go to https://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=ESX40

but I get redirected to (ErrAuthzDeny)

Is there another link I can use?

[trevorbell]

Hi,

I have a 3 esx cluster and only 2 serial keys even though all are under support all i can assume is there still a backlog in issuing new keys ? as i cant do nothing wit 2 x 1 cpu license when i require 6 and a new VC key aswell... a little dissapointing. and im not even sure Veeam or Backup Exec are ready to even backup VM`s under this new version either.

Trev

[joelbancroftcon]

You might want to drop a support request into

Probably something VMWare's licensing support can help you with pretty quickly.

[admin]

Hi trevorbell, if you haven't received the correct number of vSphere upgrade licenses, contact VMware licensing team for further investigation. Please be patient as the fulfillment may take some time to get completed.

VMware-GSS,

VMware Communities User Moderator

[trevorbell]

I will just wait a while, i guess the delay is our licensing was upgraded from standard to enterprise in vi3 so not as straight forward

thanks guys

Trev