Adding a ESXi 4 host to vCenter 5.1 Trial Version.

[jimmcgrath6688]

Hi all,

We have a number of hosts in our lab environment running ESXi 4, ESXi 4.1 and even ESXi 5.0. We thought we would give vCenter 5.1 a go so I downloaded the 60 day free trial version but receive the following error when trying to add the host:

The host is licensed with VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor. The license edition of vCenter Server does not support VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor.

Do the hosts needed to be running the ESXi 5.1 hypervisor to be added to the vCenter 5.1 Trial Version?

What about if you buy vCenter 5.1, will it be able to manage ESXi 4.0/4.1/5.0 hosts? Or if you want to use vCenter 5.1 do you need to upgrade all your hosts to the ESXi 5.1 hypervisor?

Thanks for any help, much appreciated!

J

[Troy_Clavell]

the VMware vSphere Hypervisor (free version) cannot be managed by vCenter.

[jimmcgrath6688]

Is that a new thing in vSphere 5.1? This wasnt the case in the past from what I have read and been told.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

jimmcgrath6688 wrote:

Is that a new thing in vSphere 5.1? This wasnt the case in the past from what I have read and been told.

no, this has been around for quite sometime.

[Nuke2computer]

I have run vCenter server 5.0 with my ESXi 4.1 in the past.  I just installed the trial fo 5.1 after successfully testing the 5.0 trial and received the error stated above.  This makes no sense to me why this version would not support previous versions of ESXi.