vCenter Licencing Confusion

[bhailes]

We are looking to provide centeralised management for our 20 ESXi servers through the use of vCenter, how ever we are slightly confused about the need for vSphere to interact with vCenter

I can see we need vCenter Server Standard to provide management of the 20 hosts, but do we need to purchase vSphere as well? or can we just ignore that and get vCenter to interact with the ESXi software as it is, its a bit confusing trying to work out if you do or you dont, I have read around the boards abit but that doesnt seem to help us understand if we do or dont need it.

Can anyone provide an answer to this problem?

Any help you can provide will be appreciated

Cheers

[Troy_Clavell]

I think your confusion resides around product names. vSphere4 is the marketing name and it consists of 3 main products; vCenter4, ESX(i)4 and the vSphere Client.

All licensing is handled by keys.

Maybe this will help

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Forums - First off keep in mind vSphere is more of a marketing term- it referes to the suite of products that provide datacenter virtualization. So to license vCenter - you will need the following:

• vCeneter Server Standard license

• vCenter Agent Licenses for your ESXi hosts - these are licensed by physical CPU and will allow you to manage your ESXi servers from vCenter

• If you want to use higher order functinality like vMotion, DRS, HA, 8 vCPUs, distributed Virtual Switches etc. you will need to purchase those licenses as well for each host

VMware does providelicense bundles that will include the necessary licenses -this is a comparison of thdifferent license levels/bundles - http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

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[bhailes]

Thank you for the responses

So from what I can understand so far, the VMware vCenter Server 4 Standard for vSphere (Includes Orchestrator

and Linked Mode) + Basic (12x5) 1 Year Support would cover the vCenter licence,

vCenter Agent Licenses for your ESXi hosts <- is this the ESXi 4 licence that we have for installing ESXi boxes, or is this a different key thats included the vCenter server package or is it another licence that we need to purchase

We dont need vMotion and the other higher up licences, so we could ignore that licence which I gather is part of vSphere licence which is based on per cpu licence

All I need to know know is the vCenter Agent licence bit and I think I'll be on my way to understanding and being able to write a document to put towards the higher ups.

[Troy_Clavell]

vCenter Agent Licenses for your ESXi hosts <- is this the ESXi 4 licence that we have for installing ESXi boxes, or is this a different key thats included the vCenter server package or is it another licence that we need to purchase

The free version of ESXi does not come with a vCenter agent license, so that would need to be purchased seperatly

We dont need vMotion and the other higher up licences, so we could ignore that licence which I gather is part of vSphere licence which is based on per cpu licence

yes

These may help as well

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010657

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

[weinstein5]

vCenter Agent Licenses for your ESXi hosts <- is this the ESXi 4 licence that we have for installing ESXi boxes, or is this a different key thats included the vCenter server package or is it another licence that we need to purchase

You would receive a new license key that will need to be added to you ESXi server - you might also look at the essentials licesing - which bundles a back up tool - I would contact VMware Sales to get pricing - and if I was unclear these licenses are also licensed per physical CPU

Here is the official doc on Licensing - http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful