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Tulkkusetae
Contributor
Contributor

vCloud Usage Meter with free ESXi 5.x

Hi,

Our company is about to start using this per h licensing method. We have now only free ESXi hosts which are managed by vSphere of course. A VMWare redistributor instructed me to install this usage meter on existing host. Okay, the installation was fine but when I try to add an ESXi host to Manage->Products->vCenter Server it tells me the following:

Not a vCenter Server: VMware ESXi 5.1.0 build-1021289

Naturally this is correct because I don't have a vCenter yet. Should this system even work on individual esxi hosts? At least the manual says so, as far as I got it correct.

If I can't get this work, are there any alternative methods to find out an assumed monthly fee of using my hosts under this points license?

Thank you.

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IamTHEvilONE
Immortal
Immortal

The point of usage meter is to track VSPP licensing.  To even apply the VSPP license to an ESXi host, you need vCenter.

Can you post the section of the manual which may have caused this confusion? (URL + page number is good too).

We do track the license use on a per host basis (e.g. number of VMs on said host), but I do think we need vCenter to be in place.

Tulkkusetae
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. Like I said a VMWare retailer guided me to install vCloud Usage Meter so I could find out an approximation how much our current state of virtualization would cost by using VSPP license. I clearly told them that we are using a few free ESXi hosts with vSphere. Maybe he had no idea what he was talking about..

But I found something in the manual too:

vCloud Usage Meter User's Guide

vCloud Usage Meter 3.1

Page 19

Add vCenter Server Instances

To begin metering, you provide a host name and credentials for at least one vCenter Server. You can add

one or more vCenter Server. You can also add ESXi hosts directly, although this is experimental, whether or

not they are managed by a vCenter Server instance.

.

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IamTHEvilONE
Immortal
Immortal

The experimental note should be stressed.  I'll ask around internally to see if it's expected to work.

What's the version & build of ESXi you are trying to add to Usage Meter, as well as the version/build of Usage Meter itself?

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Tulkkusetae
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

The versions are:

vCloud Usage Meter 3.1 - which is the newest that can be downloaded from vmware site.

Version of the ESXi is 5.1.0 Build 1021289.

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IamTHEvilONE
Immortal
Immortal

Unfortunately, I don't think this will work for you.  I hope to have a more formal answer sometime soon.

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TrevorBlack
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Calculating the VSPP usage manually would be very difficult without vCenter to capture the data for you. If I were you, I might try to get VMware to issue me some trial keys for the hosts and a vCenter instance. You'd need to run that way for a full month to get good numbers, though...

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Josh26
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

VMWare retailer guided me to install vCloud Usage Meter

This is exactly what VMware Capacity Planner is designed to do for you - and what every accredited VMware retailer is trained to utilise to design such solutions.

I'd be looking for another supplier. vCloud Usage Meter is going to present "reports" that are aimed at VSPP aggregators, not yourself.

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TrevorBlack
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Actually, this is not at all what Capacity Planner is designed to do. I think you are misreading the situation. He is trying to determine what the monthly cost will be to transition his existing free vSphere workloads over to paid versions via the VSPP program. Usage Meter is exactly what is needed to answer this question, but unfortunately the limitations of the free hypervisor (no vCenter) are preventing it from doing so as it cannot gather the necessary data.

As I see it, the two best options are:

1. Acquire and apply trial keys for the hosts and a vCenter instace, then spin up Usage Meter and monitor for 30 days to allow the reports to be generated.

2. Attempt to determine the VSPP point total yourself by manually gathering VM data from hosts and using the calculation from the VSPP documentation.

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