two questions regarding vmware standard vs enterprise

[infinitiguy]

I have 3 esx servers.. two are vmware enterprise running at 3.0.1(vmotion, ha, drs etc..) and a third standard license(no ha.. etc..) that I just upgraded to 3.5. I also have a single virtual center license that I manage my two enterprise VMware ESX servers under.

Two questions.. the 3.5 machine was my dev machine.. I just moved all my dev machines to it.. including some templates I had played around with, and now I've discovered I seem to have lost the ability to provision machines from templates.. after some quick reading I think this is because you need the machine to be managed under Virtual Center to be able to do that.. which is fine if that's the case..

more importantly, and this is a licensing question... can I add my esx standard license to my VC server so I can manage all 3 vm servers under virtual center? I just bought a 4th server with vmware foundation for the eng lab.. and it'd be great if I could manage that under my VC server as well, but I'm not sure if thats the way it works.

[weinstein5]

To answer your questions -

Yes to use template you need Virtual Center -

As long as you have the ESX VC license (which I think is included with the standard license) you should be able to manage your dev ESX host with your VC server -

[admin]

I have 3 esx servers.. two are vmware enterprise running at 3.0.1(vmotion, ha, drs etc..) and a third standard license(no ha.. etc..) that I just upgraded to 3.5. I also have a single virtual center license that I manage my two enterprise VMware ESX servers under.

Two questions.. the 3.5 machine was my dev machine.. I just moved all my dev machines to it.. including some templates I had played around with, and now I've discovered I seem to have lost the ability to provision machines from templates.. after some quick reading I think this is because you need the machine to be managed under Virtual Center to be able to do that.. which is fine if that's the case..

Yes, VC is required for templates.

more importantly, and this is a licensing question... can I add my esx standard license to my VC server so I can manage all 3 vm servers under virtual center? I just bought a 4th server with vmware foundation for the eng lab.. and it'd be great if I could manage that under my VC server as well, but I'm not sure if thats the way it works.

All versions of ESX come with a VC Agent license, so yes, you will be able to manage all 4 of your hosts from yuor single VC server.

[VMKR9]

yes you can add all 4 of your hosts to VC and templating and cloning etc are feature of virtual center....

[TomHowarth]

Two questions.. the 3.5 machine was my dev machine.. I just moved all my dev machines to it.. including some templates I had played around with, and now I've discovered I seem to have lost the ability to provision machines from templates.. after some quick reading I think this is because you need the machine to be managed under Virtual Center to be able to do that.. which is fine if that's the case..

that is the case Just add the host to be managed by your VirtualCenter as you ablility to deploy be template will be returned

more importantly, and this is a licensing question... can I add my esx standard license to my VC server so I can manage all 3 vm servers under virtual center? I just bought a 4th server with vmware foundation for the eng lab.. and it'd be great if I could manage that under my VC server as well, but I'm not sure if thats the way it works.

all ESX versions including VI3 include the VC management license including Foundation, you will just be able to add it to the farm, it will not be able to function in HA/DRS or vMotion. however if you upgrade your 3.0.1 enterprise server to 3.5 you will be able to utilise your upgraded "3.5 Standard" Dev server in a HA cluster as VMware have added HA to Standard ESX.

Foundation does not have a HA license associated with it.

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator