Licensing Upgrade vs vSphere Migration ESX to ESXi?

[habibalby]

Hello,

The current environment has three ESX4.0 Hosts with Advanced License and vCenter Standard. Upgrading to Enterprise Plus, is little pain due to cost involve in that. Each CPU will cost around 2400$ which will include the Enterprise Support "Active Advanced License Support will not be considered, this is as per the sales represensitve".

Since ESX eventually will be retired and only ESXi will be the one, I'm thinking to migrate to ESXi. But, do I have to purchase a new license for the ESXi or the exisiting vCenter license will be able to manage the ESXi hosts?

If I will be purchasing a new licenses for the ESXi, what are these licenses and what will be the cost of it?

Thanks,

[samansalehi]

all the Licenses that work on ESX 4, will work on ESXi 4 too with all the features that previously supported on that license with ESX 4.

this web for the vSphere 4.1, and it supports for both ESX and ESXi:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

If this answer is usefull, would u please mark it as "helpful" or "Correct"?

[idle-jam]

ESXi and ESX are interchangeable. You can reuse back your existing license that you already have purchased.

[habibalby]

Hello,

The current licenses are Advanced without DRS, Storage vMotion, etc etc.

Once I upgraded to the ESXi, will I be getting all the enterprise features? or Still I have to upgrade my licenses even I migrate to the ESXi?

Thanks,

[idle-jam · Accepted solution]

ESXi is one of the component of vSphere4. You will still need to upgrade to your desire edition, such as advance to standardize or all to enterprise for storage vmotion & DRS.

[samansalehi]

As idle-jam said, you need to upgrade the license, upgrading the ESX to ESXi or ESX4 to ESX 4.1 has no effect on special features.

Please if it is useful mark it as "Helpful" or "Correct", thank u.

[habibalby]

Appreciate your answers guys, thanks alot.

[samansalehi]

Your welcome, im glad, if it is useful