Down/Up grade from HP EXsi 5.5 to vSpere Hypervisor 5.5

[cdebackere]

Hello,

I am a bit confused regarding free/licensing.

I wanted to install hypervisor 5.5 (with Exsi) on a Proliant server.

As I noticed HP had a customised Exsi 5.5, I thought I better install that one. Since the free Hypervisor contains the Exsi, I (wrongly) assumed the HP Exsi would be free as well.

Only to discover after installation that it is a 60 day trial

How should I continue now, to get the free Hypervisor 5.5 on the server?

- 'upgrade? : since the Hypervisor is 5.5-update 1, this is maybe a viable option

- remove/reinstall/downgrade?

- insert a free license key?

I've only played around a bit with some test VM's, so it's not dramatic if I need to start from scratch again ... but preferably not

Thanks in advance

Christof

[wmarusiak]

Hi cdebackere,

When you choose HP ESXi ISO you have:

• Includes all of the required drivers to run ESXi on HP ProLiant servers
• Installs the management software to enable robust server management
• Works seamlessly with Intelligent Provisioning

Afterward you have to get free license key from VMware and apply it to your host. 60 days trial will be over and your free license will stay there.

[cdebackere]

Hi

thanks. I nearly asked 'where can I get the license' .. but thought to give it a quick try ... and it's rather obvious (although I overlooked it initially)

I entered the key and it works well.

Two small quenstions remain:

1) Now that the ESXi 5.5 'HP flavour' is running, do I need to follow the HP upgrades, or do I follow the plain vmware upgrades ? Eg: on vmware there is an 'upgrade 1' for 5.5 available already.

2) Do I need to install the management tools separately? they seem to be included in hypervisor and not in ESXi itself.

Thanks,

C.

[wmarusiak · Accepted solution]

Hi,

HP updates from http://vibsdepot.hp.com/ are used to download HP related things - drivers etc. Just use normal upgrade process for ESXi and HP one for rest. You don't need to install additional tools - they are included in image.