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JasonVmware
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Help with Licensing

Hello all,

Okay I have had so many people tell me different things about licensing I don't know which is correct anymore. I used to think that ESX was licensed per CPU not core, meaning if you have the following enviroment:

- 3 ESX servers with 4 psyhical dual core cpu's

- The ability to Vmotion without taking the systems offlin

- The need for some applications to use multiprocessor support.

You would only have to buy 12 ESX licences and 12 Vmotion licences, but recently someone told me that you would need 24 esx licences and 24 vmotion licenses because to have the ability to vmotion without taking them offline requires you to license per core? I think this totaly wrong but could someone please clarfy for me.

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williamarrata
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Yes, for example, I have a Host with 2 cpu's, wether they are dual or quad core is irrelevant. I need my licensing to cover the ESX Server Standard Licensing. It should say, Licensed for 2 CPUs. My Add-Ons will say

VMotion Licensed for 2 CPU's

and so on.

Hope that helped. Smiley Happy

Hope that helped. 🙂

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williamarrata
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Newer processors have two CPU cores in each processor package. Systems with dual-core processors must use ESX Server 2.5.2 or later or GSX Server 3.2 or later. VirtualCenter licenses are issued by pairs of processor packages, not by processor cores. Therefore, if the system is using two dual-core processors or two single-core processors, the system requires a single 2-processor VirtualCenter license. Please check uot this web link for more information.

Hope that helped. Smiley Happy

Hope that helped. 🙂
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JasonVmware
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So then to clarify I was correct with my first assumtion, being that in that example I gave, you would only need to purchase 12 esx licenses and 12 vmotion licenses as it's per CPU not core, and with 3 ESX servers with 2 psyhical dual core cpu's in them each, that would be 12 lic's per option I would like to use, correct?

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dmismash
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To clarify... you were correct in your first assumption. But with 3 ESX server with 2 physical dual core cpu's in them each, that would be 6 lic's per option. Do not worry about cores. Only count the CPU's. If they were quad core but still had a physical CPU Count of 2 it would be the same. VMware does not count cores, only physical processors.

williamarrata
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Yes, for example, I have a Host with 2 cpu's, wether they are dual or quad core is irrelevant. I need my licensing to cover the ESX Server Standard Licensing. It should say, Licensed for 2 CPUs. My Add-Ons will say

VMotion Licensed for 2 CPU's

and so on.

Hope that helped. Smiley Happy

Hope that helped. 🙂
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