VMWare ESXi Licensing - EXTREME CONFUSION

[ryonday]

My impression as an ESXi newbie of the story up until now from a bunch of Google searches goes something like this:

• At some juncture following the release of ESXi 5.0, VMWare had that feeling of dawning horror where they realized they screwed the pooch
  
• They backpedaled on their night-fisted licensing where RAM is concerned
  
• They totally failed to communicate their changes in a coherent manner
  
• They have still failed at anything resembling communication about what this whole licensing thing is all about.
  

So, friendly VMWare people, I need some guidance here.

My situation:

• Hyper-V (Windows 2008R2) blows.I use several products that come ready-packaged as VMs, and these are largely VMWare. Mentioning Hyper-V in relation to these products elicits a reaction similar to farting in an elevator.
  
• I want to use another product that does not blow and that makes it possible for me to do my job.
  
• From what I'm reading, VMWare doesn't want just anyone to just march in to their site and, you know, understand their product line; they want you to EARN IT, damnit.
  

I have quite a nice kit. Sandy Bridge-E, 64GB quad-channel RAM. I have a small list of simple 99%-er little-people desires:

• I want to run Virtual Machines. I hear that VMWare can help me with this, but their site is a little unclear on this point, so I need to rely on you unpaid volunteers to be Anne Sullivan to VMWare's Hellen Keller.
  
• I want to be able to take full advantage of the hardware
  
• I am just a simple caveman with a single server, Your world of "vCenters" and your "vRAM entitlements" frighens and confuses me. I don't need to "manage multiple servers", whatever that means.
  
• I want to take snapshots of the VMs
  

From what I've been able to glean, there will be no free lunch for me:

• Free ESXi does not support snapshots (?)
  
• Free ESXi won't even install on my machine unless I remove half of my beautiful RAM (It has heatsinks. HEATSINKS!)
  

the lowest-priced, Yugo-style value package I've been able to find on VMWare's site includes three server support and vCenter. Honestly, I don't want any of that crap.

Can I just buy a "real" license for my single ESXi instance and enjoy all my RAM and make snapshots without any of the extra crap? From what I've read, it doesn't even look like my single processor server will even be able to use more than 32GB of RAM even if I pay for Essentials! (It says it's limited to 32GB of RAM per CPU) WTF?

What's the least amount of money I can spend and get what I need?

Thanks for any help!

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the communities.

Take a look at VMware vSphere Standard  at http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/pricing.html. The editions comparison page is also useful in showing you what you get.

[mcowger]

To your questions:

1) ESXi (even the free version) supports snapshots.

2) The free license to ESXi does limit you to 32GB of physical memory.

So, if you want to use all your memory, you need to pay for a license.  The minimum license for you would be vSphere Standard here:

http://www.vmware.com/a/buylink/92

Will allow you to create VMs with up to 8 vCPUs, and use unlimited memory.  List price of $1000.

[DreamPC_Compute]

whats the best software to use that is actually free as in freeware, completey free.

I think I am starting to get wet feet on the licensning prices and confusion of vmware. Seems like its good software. they get you hooked but when you want more that 1 cpu, 32gb, and no clustering.... you have to start paying thousands for each cpu....... isnt the idea on vm to make it cheaper?.....

When it comes to servers, most have two cpus, vmware makes it cheaper to buy a new server with 8 cores and 1 cpu  than to buy a dozen of two core xeons quads at $100 each on ebay,.... when you consider the cost of vmware.... a thousand dollars software cost per server that only cost $100.

Can i even use esxi with a $100 server that sports a dual cpu....

[dkraut]

Your posts are entertaining to say the least, but I understand your frustration. 

Although you only have a single server today, you do not want all your eggs in one basket.  Do yourself a favor and fire up at least 2 or 3 servers so you have some level of redundancy.  With that in mind, you can get an Essentials Kit for less than $600 >

http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsPage/productID.233860600?resid=UG98p...   

That gives you a license for up to 3 dual CPU servers and you even get vCenter!

You get to keep all your fancy HEATSINK RAM too!  lol, come on in, this stuff is really cool.  When you start running 20+ prod servers on a single physical box, you'll see the light.

*btw, make sure your server/hardware is on the HCL (Compatibility List).   

some additional pricing info here >

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/pricing.html