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jsdmc
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licensing a ESXi Hypervisors to vSphere

Hi

I am looking for an answer by sale dep but 10 days an nothing ... so I try my chance here ...

I am new to vmware environnements, my boss tels me to manage 3 ESXi free hypervisors.
But since there is no vStorage need for incremental backups in free licence i told him to by a vSphere Essential Kit.

Can you confirm, third party backup application (iperius / veeam ...) will works correctly using an essential licencied ESXi host ?

Can you confirm me if it is possible to migrate form free mode to paid mode without loosing datas / reinstalling ?

(ESXi hypevisor and vSphere hosts ISOs are the same ?

Is it just a llcence change on the host web page ?

Thanks

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a_p_
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Welcome to the Community,

you are right, any paid edition unlocks the API that's required by most VM based backup applications. Veeam for example even offers its own Essentials Edition (in 2CPU packs), which may be used with the vSphere Essentials Editions. I'd suggest you lookup the details at their site, and print out the information for your boss.

Yes, all editions use the same binaries, so it's only a matter of assigning the license key to "convert" the Hypervisor to an Essentials Edition.

André

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a_p_
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Welcome to the Community,

you are right, any paid edition unlocks the API that's required by most VM based backup applications. Veeam for example even offers its own Essentials Edition (in 2CPU packs), which may be used with the vSphere Essentials Editions. I'd suggest you lookup the details at their site, and print out the information for your boss.

Yes, all editions use the same binaries, so it's only a matter of assigning the license key to "convert" the Hypervisor to an Essentials Edition.

André

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IRIX201110141
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Confirmed.

You even need no reboot/downtime when switching the vSphere licenses. So the 420,- for vSphere Essentials + 60,-(1Y Subscription) are well spend.

Regards,

Joerg

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Dave_the_Wave
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The license is not a SID or a UUID, in fact your free license will still remain in the settings of the host.

At anytime you can remove the paid license and transfer it to another new host, and the old host goes back to re-use the free key.

I know VM Explorer can backup directly from individual hosts, but it is a good idea to get the vSphere package because the included vCenter server will open up everything VMware has to offer.

For example, Vertias Backup Exec connects to the vCenter server and will create temporary snapshots of VMs silently in the background, which are its idea of incremental backups. This was available since version 16 and I believe they are at version 20 now.

Like many software sales models today, the free hypervisior for the most part is simply freeware just to give people a taste.

You may want to check out the vmware YouTube channel.

20180205-VM_Explorer_unpacks_thin_disks-FOR_VMTN.gif

20180312-Veritas_Backup_Exec_16-screenshot-FOR_VMTN.gif

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jsdmc
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Hello

Thanks all for your rapid and pertinent answers !

Initial question is completly answered Smiley Happy, so i'll go on acquiring Essential kit.

Just more few details as you talked about :

- If ISO for Free ESXi and vSphere Essentials are the same, security patches works the same way ? (not familiar to vmware patching)

ESXi patching seems to be done by using files and script or by booting last ISO to do interractive update.

vSphere patching seems to be done by vCenter.

Is a valid SnS required to patch using vCenter ? (Essential kit we be bought with 1 year support subscription, at the end of this support, if more support is not purchased, will we able to obtain and deploy security patches ? (should be dissociated of migrating to any new major version which may be require a valid SnS).

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jsdmc
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@Dave_The_Wave

We have a Trilead VMExplorer Paid licence to do ESXi 6.5 replication between 2 physical locations.

But now without vStorage it's not usable.

It only grabs vm files throught ssh. Backups are too slow and bandwidth - storage consuming for our usage.

I'll see if this can be optimised after vSphere licence installation.

Moreover trilead needs a root account directly on esxi host which is a serious security problem.

Do you knows about VMExplorer optimisation ?

Have you advices / experiences using other backup / replication softwares ? (free if possible - we only have 2 sockets esxi hosts).

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