Clarification about licenses

[teknogroup]

Hi,

I have a long VMWare history, starting from version 2.5; I inherited old licenses but also added new v.3 ones.

Now I have this situation:

1) What are the differences between "ESX Server Foundation" and "ESX Server Standard"?

2) Have I a general total of 32 "basic" licenses?

3) Why I have 28 HA and only 2 DRS?

4) Why I get "There are not enough available licenses" if I create an HA-only cluster?

5) Am I "ready" to have full entitlement with next vCenter products, when they will be available?

Thanks

[madda]

1) With standard you get HA, foundation doesnt include this

2) Foundation + Standard = Total amount of hosts you can use

3) Not sure about this one, DRS/VMotion should be the same I think as DRS uses VMotion

4) One of the hosts in the cluster is using foundation license and needs standard license for HA

5) You will be able to upgrade to vCenter but you wont have "Full entitlement" as you dont have all enterprise licenses, however you would be able to run with equivalent foundation/standard licenses with future versions

[kjb007]

1. Foundation is a limited license suite for SMB business. A foundation license can give you a vc, and up to 4 ESX hosts.

2. You have 28 standard licenses (can be used for vmotion/HA), and 4 foundation licenses, so no HA/DRS.

3. You have 28 HA and 28 vMotion licenses. 2 for DRS, so I'm thinking there may be a problem with your license file. I'd go online to the license portal, and combine some old license files into a new one that's all sorted out. It would be easier to deal with.

4. I'd go to your ESX hosts, and make sure they are all checked off to use HA. If not, I'd reapply the license configuration. Since those license are not in use, you are not able to use HA.

5. As long as you have current support, you should be able to get updates, but check with vmware for certain that you're good to go. Especailly since you mentioned 2.5

-KjB