How do I determine what Edition, not build, of ESXi is installed?

[russ_elliott]

Hi

Is the free version just the standard edition or can you use any of the editions of ESXi? Have two boxes with ESXi right now with 4.0 Build 208167 and vSphere build 208111 and trying to determine what edition the ESXi is. All I know for sure, aside from what I mentioned above, is the following:

Product: ESXi 4 Single Server Licensed for 1 physical CPUs (1-6 cores per CPU)

License Key: There is one entered

Expires: Never

Product Features:

Up to 256 GB of memory

Up to 4-way virtual SMP

Thanks in advance

Russ

[Troy_Clavell]

looks like the free edition of ESXi

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

[weinstein5]

Thread moved to VMware ESXi 4 Forum -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[a_p_]

Russ,

the license edition is displayed when you look at the licensed features:

Product: ESXi 4 Single Server Licensed for 1 physical CPUs (1-6 cores per CPU)

In addition to Troy's link, the following link includes the single server license which - to answer your question - is NOT the standard version.

ESXi vs. ESX: A comparison of features

The installation is the same for all editions. It's just the license which activates or hides the different features.

André

[russ_elliott]

My apologies for posting in the incorrect area. Somehow I missed the 4.0 when I brought up the dropdown list of the forums. Appreciate you moving it over. Also, I definitely award points for the correct, or helpful, answers.

Thanks

Russ

[russ_elliott]

so, are these:

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4#product_downloads

Free products as well? I am referring to the esxi categories of course...

Thanks

Russ

P.S. - I think the topic got moved just as I was posting a reply because I dont see it here. Just wanted to say thanks to Troy and ask a question:

Arent the vSphere and the ESXi products separate items? The link you posted brought me to vSphere and not ESXi. If that represents the same data then thanks and sorry for my confusion. If not the same, thanks anway for the info on the vSphere

[a_p_]

Russ,

don't get confused with the names. vSphere is the name for the product suite whereas ESX and ESXi are the names for the Hypervisor (OS), you install on the physical hosts.

The free licence is only valid for ESXi, which limits the features to the ones you see.

André

[russ_elliott]

Thanks Andre

Then the end all be all question I have is that are all of those editions listed of ESXi free (the URL I posted earlier):

Essential Edition

Essential Plus Edition

Standard Edition

Advanced Edition

Enterprise Edition

Enterprise Plus Edition

If they are, how do I tell which I have installed and how do I get a license for a specific version (ie lets say I wanted the Essential Plus)?

Russ

[DSTAVERT]

The license you purchase and apply will determine which features you have available. It doesn't matter what link you download from. Once the license is applied you will have the appropriate features available for the version you paid for.

[DSTAVERT]

If you download from the ESXi Enterprise link and use it in trial mode then later purchase the Essentials Plus license. Once you apply the Essentials Plus licesence the features that were available in the trial Enterprise will go away and you will ony have the Essentials Plus features

[DSTAVERT]

Visit the Vmware store http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/ to purchase.

[RobertPRAG]

Hopefully this will help.

The ESXi installation package is the same for all versions - free to enterprise. Once this is installed on your host, the license that you apply to it enables the features within the different bundles that you can buy.

So if you have the free license, you only get some functionality where as if you purchase the enterprise license at a later date you will get all the functionality without having to reinstall ESXi - you just apply the license key and the features are enabled.

Thanks

Rob

[russ_elliott]

So, in a nutshell, I have the ESXi free version with the vSphere free version (and whatever that comes with). If I want to use the Enterprise Plus, for example, I would actually need to buy the vSphere Enterprise Plus since all versions of ESXi are the same. The features are actually incorporated into the vSphere. So all those updates listed for ESXi, regardless of what section they are in, would perform the same function inasmuch as updating my ESXi is concerned.

Do I have it now?

Thanks

[Troy_Clavell]

pretty much. All features are enabled based on license keys.