Cost and licensing of vCenter

[jesszen]

We have 4 x ESX 3.5 host running standard licenses. I'd like to upgrade to vSphere and implement vCenter and use vMotion. Do I need to purchase advance licenses for all of my host and also purchase vCenter. Are there different licensed levels of vCenter or is it a single purchase and functionallity is based on your host license? Any info or suggestions on how to implement this are appreciated!

[gary1012]

Here's a link to editions comparison. You will need at minimum, Advanced vSphere licenses for every host in which you'd like to enable vMotion. Costs between editions can be found at this link.

[jesszen]

Thanks Gary! Those are the links I was looking for. So I'll need to get 8 x Advanced vSphere licenses (2 cores per host) and 1 x Foundation vCenter license. Does vCenter require a lot of resources?

[gary1012 · Accepted solution]

Two processors and 3GB RAM to start... Here's a link to the install guide. BTW, vCenter can be physical or virtual. Here's a link that explains the pros v. cons of each approach.

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