I am bit confused over the various licensing options that VMware has now. It is my understanding that for Full Versions (ESX4 and ESXi) that the Enterprise licensing option is no longer available. However, there is another set of licenses now that does offer an Enterprise option. This is offered in the vSphere Acceleration and Essentials kits.
However, I also understand that the Acceleration and Essentials kits are limited in the number of hosts and VMs the license supports. Additionally, it is my understanding that should a company want to later upgrade to the Full license that there is NO upgrade discount option. The company must purchase full retail licenses for the Full version. Is that correct? And, if they do this.....does this mean they will need to do a full remove and reinstall of ESX and vCenter or is it just a matter of the license keys being changed.
This is important because many of my clients are currently small/mid sized companies and the Acceleration and Essentials kits service their current needs but as they grow they may very well want to go with the full version.
To move between differenting licensing levels simply requires replacing the license key - there will be no need to reinstall the software. In terms of an upgrade price - it is my understanding as long as the product has an SnS contract they will be able to upgrade at a reduced cost -
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I think there are a lot of misunderstandings here:
For an overview see http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/small_business_editions_comparison.html
André