vSphere Essentials Kit Limitations. If any.

[E1Bilisim]

Hello, I'm planning to buy vSphere Essentials Kit for my server. However I have a question.

I have a server with 2 socket, 44 core and 256GB ram.

Can I create vm's like below with vSphere Essentials Kit.

VM1 : 16core, 100GB RAM

VM2 : 10 core 50GB RAM

VM3 : 2 core 8GB RAM

..

VM9 : 2 core 4GB RAM

So, Is there any cpu core or ram limitations on vSphere Essentials Kit?

Thank you for your time,

[Finikiez]

vSphere essentials doesn't have limits on CPU and RAM for virtual machines. However there are other limits on functionality.

Check licensing guide https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-vsphere-vs...

[jfene72 · Accepted solution]

There are no limitations as far as virtual machine resource assignment goes. However keep in mind that vSphere Essentials come as a 6-license (per CPU socket) pack, so at max your environment is limited to three 2-socket servers. Fact is, you're highly restricted in terms of scalability if your plan is to expand the infrastructure further down the line. Also note that you need Essentials Plus if you're after features such as vMotion, HA, etc. You might also want to consider the Acceleration Kits as well.

I have a blog post on the subject matter you can find here.

[E1Bilisim]

Thank you for information.

[bbiandov]

jfene72​ Thanks for the in-depth answer, on the 6 sockets, is it truly 6 sockets regardless of the number of servers meaning can I run 6 ESXi hypervisor servers each with 1 CPU socket under the essential license?

Thanks

~B

[IRIX201110141]

No.  max 3 Hosts with up to 2 sockets. You cant use 6 Hosts with one socket each when using Essentials licensing!

The confusion starts because vmware licensing will delivering the following after the purchase

1x vCenter  Essesntials (max. 3 Hosts)

6x 1 CPU ESXi Essentials

Regards

Joerg

[bbirchmeierSP]

Hello,

Follow up question. This limit is to a single license, if 2 licenses were purchase would the new limit be 6 hosts up to 2 CPU per host? All still management from a single vSphere?

Thanks

[Finikiez]

with essentials kit you've got a vcenter essentials license.

VC essential can't manage more than 3 esxi hosts with 2 CPUs

see vCenter Server Licensing Options - VMware vSphere Blog

[bbirchmeierSP]

To confirm if two (2) VMWare vSphere Essentials Kit licenses where purchased they cannot be combined to allow up to 6 hosts with up to 2 CPU per host to be managed from a single vCenter management console?

[IRIX201110141]

They cant!

Regards

Joerg

[Finikiez]

this will be two separate installations of vcenter plus 3 esxi host, you can't combine them technically.

[bbiandov]

So in a way one can achieve limitless ESXi hosts (properly licensed under essentials of course) but they will have to be managed separately 3 at a time and each threesome will be managed by its own VCSA, from a management stand point far from ideal but in terms of compute power the license can scale, I read more around specifically VMW prohibiting this kind of setup and I couldn't find anything that explicitly says one can't use essentials license in such a way. The management piece, of course is the downfall of such deployment

[Pawawdu16]

HI Gentlmen,

As vCenter Essentials is limited to 3 hosts, what about using a config like this :

4x 1 CPU hosts with ESXi Essentials

&

1x Vcenter Foundation

Is that gonna work?

Regards

[a_p_]

From the licensing document, that has been mentioned in the first reply:

vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus Kits are self-contained solutions and may not be decoupled, or combined with other vSphere editions.

André

[Pawawdu16]

Hi André,

Does it mean that a vCenter Foundation will not recognize an ESXI installed with Essentials licence?

Regards

[a_p_]

Does it mean that a vCenter Foundation will not recognize an ESXI installed with Essentials licence?

Not necessarily, I assume that it will vCenter recognize the host's Essentials license, and refuse to add them.

Anyway, even if this would technically work, it would violate the EULA, and you could never be sure that it would still work after an update/patch.

André

[Pawawdu16]

Ok Clear,

Thanks for your quick feedback

[IRIX201110141]

In the early days this would only a violation of the EULA but since a couple of years its technicly no possible anymore and VMware made it impossible.

A vCenter Foundation or Standard will drop a ESXi Essentials as soon as detect the license. This is also true if you change/upgrade the ESXi or vCenter license of a Essentials installation to something higher.

Regards

Joerg