Licensing per CPU or per CPU and physical machine?

[eger]

I noticed the licensing stated that it is per physical CPU. If a machien is a single CPU then would a license for 2 CPU be allowed to span 2 physical host machine with 1 CPU each?

Any insight or documentation about the licensing in this area would be great. Thanks!

[jjohnston1127]

Correct.

1 license per 2 CPU.

You can have two single-CPU servers and they will be covered.

I wouldn't recommend running a single CPU server.

[Troy_Clavell]

You need atleast two processors to run ESX.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_installation_guide.pdf

[eger]

Great!

Good information to know. ESX installs and seems to run great on my test single quad core xeon... Not sure why 2 physical is a requirement. Maybe in some systems 1 will not work correctly.

[virtualbot]

Licensing is per socket. So if you have 4 CPUs but just 2 sockets in your server, you will just need one license, because VMware considers 2 sockets as 2 processors. And I don't think a single license can be separated between 2 different hosts even though each host has a single CPU.

Virtualbot

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

You need atleast two processors to run ESX.

Thats is no longer correct, both technically and legally. ESX can be installed on single CPU servers, it is just you have to buy ESX licensing in 2 CPU counts. see www.virtualization.info/2008/04/vmware-now-allows-single-cpu-license.html

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[Troy_Clavell]

Thats is no longer correct, both technically and legally. ESX can be installed on single CPU servers, it is just you have to buy ESX licensing in 2 CPU counts

Thank you for the clarification. I was just quoting was the.pdf stated.

[eger]

Thanks everyone. For reference, the news article that Tom posted lists this new part of the EULA effective at the 1st of this month which clarifies exactly what I was asking: http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/single_processor.html