Problems adding new license to vSphere Center

[MikeBobHei]

Hi,

we´ve purchased a second vSphere 4 Standard license and added the serial to our center. Now when I try to add an additional host I can assign the newly purchased licenses to the host but then get the error code "this version of the center can only manage 3 hosts". I´ve contacted sales department before we bought the license and they told us that there is no problem managing all the hosts with the license keys on on server. What did I do wrong?

Best regards,

Mike

[a_p_]

There are two different sets of licenses you need to run vSphere.

The first ones are the CPU licenses (needed for the hosts) and the other one is the vCenter Server license.

There are two editions of the vCenter Server license, Standard and Foundation. The Foundation license is limited to manage 3 hosts.

André

EDIT: If you have 3 hosts or less, then you should open a call with VMware.

[MikeBobHei]

Hm, now I´m a bit puzzled. In our license overview they call them "essentials". For the better understanding I have added a screen shot of serial number lookup (only the columns "License Type", "Product" and "Quantity"). May be this gives a better hint. At the moment we have 4 ESX servers, two with 4.0 waiting for an update and two 4.1.

Best regards,

Mike

[a_p_]

Essentials is a special bundle which cannot be combined/upgraded with other licenses. You are limited to the 6 CPU license and the maximum number of three hosts included in the pack.

I guess the one who told you it is possible to manage the standard edition was not aware of the vCenter Essentials edition.

André

[MikeBobHei]

To prevent such a problem I´d called vm ware directly. Order of the latest licenses was 3 weeks ago. So at that point I really have to run 2 centers? Both incompatible with our w2k3 32bit intrastructure? Our first w2k8 server only runs vm ware center, rest of the (64 bit) gang is linux.

Thank you so far for the reply

Mike

[a_p_]

Assuming that you actually meant vShpere Essentials and not " vSphere 4 Standard license" as mentioned in your first post, then yes, you will need to setup 2 vCenter Servers. Each vCenter Server "Essentials" is only able/limited to manage up to three hosts.

André

[MikeBobHei]

Ok, I have to admit to figure out which version for my first look I just got to the online store and took the version with the right price. Plus there is no "Essentials" Edition in the shop when you take a look at the "data center products". The sales person on the phone guided me to this special point. I´ll have a look what to do now...

Best regards,

Mike

[bsti]

You may want to double check with VMWare.

Originally, I had purchased VMWare's "Accellerator Kit" with VCenter Foundation and 6 Standard Edition CPU licenses. This was a few years ago, and things have probably changed, but this was essentially the equivalent to what you bought recently.

Since then, I was able to purchase a VMWare VCenter Standard upgrade license and am now running on Vcenter Server 4.1. Andre is probably correct about not being able to upgrade the Essentials edition, but it may be worth calling and asking specifically about upgrading just your VCenter Server to the Standard Edition so your one VCenter server can manage more hosts.

Worth a try, right?