Restrictions on vSphere Essentials license?

[LumH]

Folks,

Would like to purchase enough vSphere Essentials licenses for 12 VM Hosts - 4 licenses, I'm guessing?

I think vSphere Essentials would be a good fit because ESXi 6.5 is really all we want - we probably won't be using the vCenter Server Essentials.

This is for a very specific simulation application for a client - closed system (i.e. no Internet capability) with very little emphasis on VM failure/recovery or automatic load distribution.

A college of mine who had done previous research on this vSphere Essentials license says we don't qualify because our company is too large.

Is there such a restriction? Am I missing anything?

It sounded pretty stupid to me, but looking at the cost of a Standard vSphere license which is per socket, versus the vSphere Essentials limit of 3 VM Hosts per license, maybe there's more to this than meets the eye.

I hope you good folks out there can help clarify this... and hopefully someone "official" ?

Thanks ahead of time!

[daphnissov]

vSphere Essentials is a "kit" license, so you get 6 CPUs (3 hosts with dual sockets) and a license for vCenter Server Essentials. You cannot manage any more than those 3 hosts. So as soon as you go higher, you need to upgrade all of those hosts to vSphere Standard at least and upgrade your vCenter license to Standard as well. Licenses of those types cannot be mixed and matched. For example, you cannot use a vCenter Essentials license to manage ESXi hosts licensed for Standard and vice versa.

[a_p_]

This is a user's community. If you need an offical answer, please contact your reseller, or a VMware representative.

Anyway, I'm not aware of a limitation regarding vSphere Essentials kits regarding the size of a company, and the number of kits. However, keep in mind that vSphere Essentials Kits cannot be combined, i.e. each kit contains a license for vCenter Server for Essentials, as well as 6 CPU licenses (for up to 3 host with a max. of 2 CPUs). So if you cannot manage 12 hosts with a single vCenter Server instance, but need to deploy 4 vCenter Server instances to manage 4 x 3 hosts.

André

[LumH]

understood - as I said, I don't think we'll be using vCenter at all to manage the VMs. They will be individually managed at each VM Host using the web client.

[daphnissov]

That's fine, but you'll still receive a license. You can use up to 6 CPUs worth of ESXi hosts, not more, or, as André points out, you'll have to buy multiple Essentials bundles.

[LumH]

It's more like each license will only allow up to 3 servers, each with max 2 CPUs... In my mind, each server will be an ESXi host.

Thanks for your and Andre's comments!

[a_p_]

Just for me to understand this. Why - in this case - do you consider to purchase licenses, rather than using the free ESXi Hypervisor?

Do you need API access, VM based backups, or more than 8 vCPUs per VM?

André

[LumH]

Yep, we need the API access...