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I would say that VMware vSphere Hypervisor (i.e. ESXi free) will remain free. In general the money is in the management products and not the hypervisor. Given the free alternatives it would be quite an odd decision if they were to remove the free license.
Dave
VMware Communities User Moderator
Free ESXi Essentials training / eBook offer
Now available - VMware ESXi: Planning, Implementation, and Security
Also available - vSphere Quick Start Guide
Welcome to the VMware Communities forums.
I would say that VMware vSphere Hypervisor (i.e. ESXi free) will remain free. In general the money is in the management products and not the hypervisor. Given the free alternatives it would be quite an odd decision if they were to remove the free license.
Dave
VMware Communities User Moderator
Free ESXi Essentials training / eBook offer
Now available - VMware ESXi: Planning, Implementation, and Security
Also available - vSphere Quick Start Guide
I can not imagine why VMware would remove the free license.
The free license means that when the company requires more advanced features and management they will have to pay for a license from VMware rather then using XenServer or Hyper-V. If they removed the free license they would be basically giving money to the competition.
Thanks for the reply
Although inapprorpiate to the discussion woulld to mention the following
I have Just notcied that the learn more here link is improperly inserted, have a look at that
URL: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/esx
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"Thanks for pointing that out. I'll get it fixed.
Hi Dave,
Would you happen to know if it's possible to obtain a license key for ESXi 6.0? I downloaded a free, licensed copy a couple of years back, but I recently had to rebuild the host it was running on and it seems the license key is no longer available on my account. In fact, the entire record of my original download is gone. ESXi 6 is the only version that still supports my old MacPro3,1 Xeon processors.
Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated!
~ Tana