Could someone point me to black and white licensing info that specifies how VMware licensing works when you purchase licenses for X number of CPUs spread across multiple boxes?
I'm planning a VMware environment and of course licensing plays a large part of the cost.
For example the licensing PDF mentions the "Price per 2 processors" but I've seen conflicting information as to whether, for example, a single Enterprise license would cover two physical ESX boxes, each with a single physical CPU connected to a SAN?
I'd appreciate any clarification.
the official answer will be ESX is licensed in 2 CPU blocks, it is a fluke of the FlexLM license server that allows 2 single CPU server to be licence from one 2CPU pair. also this scenario would be unsupported by VMware
It's allowed by the licensing agreement, but is not a "supported" configuration. I can however confirm that I have tested it in this configuration and it works perfectly (on Dell PE1950s w/ Single E5345s).
Check out the first section of page 7 in this PDF.
Thanks both. Just working out the licensing "fun"!
Am I right in thinking that with 2 boxes I'd simply need 2 Enterprise Licenses and that would give me everything I needed?
I'm afraid I'm finding it confusing trying to work out what the "hidden costs" are with things like management consoles - with 2 servers I'd be happy to manage them individually but I'm unclear if you need additional licenses to be able to actually access/configure the functionality included with Enterprise.
And that's before I look at the Windows licensing side of things...
Hello,
Here are two good pricing docs:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi_pricing.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_license_FAQ.pdf
For functions like HA, DRS, VMotion, clones, templates you do need a VirtualCenter management server.
The licensing docs should clear things up. Good luck!