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veefairy
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vSphere Essentials Plus Kit - One company, spread across two sites

Hi There,

I have one Essentials Plus Kit, and I have two sites.

Site A has vCenter, with two hosts, so two of the vSphere Essentials Plus keys are going on these hosts.

Site B is the DR site, in a separate location altogether, linked via a WAN.

Can I licence this standalone host with my final vSphere key from the kit?

Thanks for you input

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vNEX
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Hi,

I will spread my answer to two:

Q:

I have one Essentials Plus Kit, and I have two sites.

Site A has vCenter, with two hosts, so two of the vSphere Essentials Plus keys are going on these hosts.

Site B is the DR site, in a separate location altogether, linked via a WAN.

Can I licence this standalone host with my final vSphere key from the kit?

A: Yes you can manage third host on separate site in my opinion this is absolutely correct from licensing point of view

Q:

I'm actually going to be getting a new vSphere 'Essentials' Kit (not Essentials Plus) for site B, and i'm going to use the vCenter Server Essentials licence in this kit to build out a new vCenter server over in site B, and configure a new, second cluster.

I'm going to connect my third host (in site B) to that vCenter server. Since that host will have an Essentials Plus licence, will the host & cluster be fully licenced for HA and DRS, or is this functionality somehow locked down from the vCenter Server side? (I believe the vCenter server is the exact same as the vCenter server that comes with the essentials plus bundle)

If i eventually add a second host to site B, with Essentials Plus (Standalone OEM for example), will this be licencing compliant? After I add that second host, I should have a fully functional HA/DRS cluster (assuming the vCenter I bought from the essentials kit isn't locked down somehow)

A:

You cant do that because you are always bound to manage your three hosts with vCenter Server provided with the Essentials Kit from which they come... so you cant mix them together each Ess/EssPlus is considered as separate solution.  That's my understanding but to be 100% sure contact your reseller.

See:

If you use VMware vCenter Server to manage Servers running a copy of VMware vSphere provided with the Essentials Kit, such Servers may only be managed by VMware vCenter Server provided with the Essentials Kit.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmware-product-guide.pdf

But if you want to mix licensing in terms of vCenter server used and have better options for managing remote and branch offices VMware offers Retail and Branch office Kits called “ROBO Kit”.

For more info see:

How to License your VMware vSphere 5.5 for Retail and Branch Offices (ROBO) | VMware SMB Blog - VMwa...

New Offer Designed for Remote and Branch Offices (ROBO): vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standar...

_________________________________________________________________________________________ If you found this or any other answer helpful, please consider to award points. (use Correct or Helpful buttons) Regards, P.

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4 Replies
JagadeeshDev
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Hi,

You can connect the host to the vcenter via WAN though the best practice/recommended option is been set to have vcenter in each sites.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMW-WP-Performance-vCenter.pdf

You might need to increase the timeout period to avoid the host disconnections due to wan link issues.

Thanks

http://www.myitblog.in/
veefairy
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Hi There,

Thanks for that. I am aware you can do that, but I guess my question is more licencing based & to find out if this is permitted.

I'm actually going to be getting a new vSphere 'Essentials' Kit (not Essentials Plus) for site B, and i'm going to use the vCenter Server Essentials licence in this kit to build out a new vCenter server over in site B, and configure a new, second cluster.

I'm going to connect my third host (in site B) to that vCenter server. Since that host will have an Essentials Plus licence, will the host & cluster be fully licenced for HA and DRS, or is this functionality somehow locked down from the vCenter Server side? (I believe the vCenter server is the exact same as the vCenter server that comes with the essentials plus bundle)

If i eventually add a second host to site B, with Essentials Plus (Standalone OEM for example), will this be licencing compliant? After I add that second host, I should have a fully functional HA/DRS cluster (assuming the vCenter I bought from the essentials kit isn't locked down somehow)

..I might need a licencing guru for this one Smiley Happy

Thanks again

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vNEX
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Hi,

I will spread my answer to two:

Q:

I have one Essentials Plus Kit, and I have two sites.

Site A has vCenter, with two hosts, so two of the vSphere Essentials Plus keys are going on these hosts.

Site B is the DR site, in a separate location altogether, linked via a WAN.

Can I licence this standalone host with my final vSphere key from the kit?

A: Yes you can manage third host on separate site in my opinion this is absolutely correct from licensing point of view

Q:

I'm actually going to be getting a new vSphere 'Essentials' Kit (not Essentials Plus) for site B, and i'm going to use the vCenter Server Essentials licence in this kit to build out a new vCenter server over in site B, and configure a new, second cluster.

I'm going to connect my third host (in site B) to that vCenter server. Since that host will have an Essentials Plus licence, will the host & cluster be fully licenced for HA and DRS, or is this functionality somehow locked down from the vCenter Server side? (I believe the vCenter server is the exact same as the vCenter server that comes with the essentials plus bundle)

If i eventually add a second host to site B, with Essentials Plus (Standalone OEM for example), will this be licencing compliant? After I add that second host, I should have a fully functional HA/DRS cluster (assuming the vCenter I bought from the essentials kit isn't locked down somehow)

A:

You cant do that because you are always bound to manage your three hosts with vCenter Server provided with the Essentials Kit from which they come... so you cant mix them together each Ess/EssPlus is considered as separate solution.  That's my understanding but to be 100% sure contact your reseller.

See:

If you use VMware vCenter Server to manage Servers running a copy of VMware vSphere provided with the Essentials Kit, such Servers may only be managed by VMware vCenter Server provided with the Essentials Kit.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmware-product-guide.pdf

But if you want to mix licensing in terms of vCenter server used and have better options for managing remote and branch offices VMware offers Retail and Branch office Kits called “ROBO Kit”.

For more info see:

How to License your VMware vSphere 5.5 for Retail and Branch Offices (ROBO) | VMware SMB Blog - VMwa...

New Offer Designed for Remote and Branch Offices (ROBO): vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standar...

_________________________________________________________________________________________ If you found this or any other answer helpful, please consider to award points. (use Correct or Helpful buttons) Regards, P.
veefairy
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Hi vNEX


Very helpful answer - understood. I can't add a vSphere Essentials Plus host (from the kit) to another vCenter Server instance that is licenced from a different purchase

This is probably a new question, but say I had an 'Essentials' kit that I bought for a single site:

Say i configured vCenter Server with the 'vCenter Server Essentials' key from that kit..

I configure a Cluster, Enabled HA & DRS (assuming that the vCenter server instance in the Essentials Kit is identical in every way to the one with the Essentials Plus kit)

Am I entitled to add 3 hosts from older purchases to this cluster? (These hosts might be already licenced with an Enterprise Key, or OEM Essentials plus for example.... ie - these keys are not from any 'kit' purchase)

I'm assuming the cluster with these hosts will be fully HA & DRS capable?

Thanks and apologies for the strange questions!

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