vCenter Foundation Question

[mrgstiffler]

We currently have 1 ESXi server running and have budgeted for vCenter. I'm looking at the vCenter Foundation package and had a couple questions. First, it looks like vCenter is now "vCenter for vSphere". Does this mean that we have to purchase vSphere as well? Or is that included in the vCenter Foundation package? VMWare has so many different products and they're constantly renaming them. It's difficult to keep everything straight. Also, our server has dual quad-cores. Will we have any licensing issues with that? The licensing for vSphere only comes in single processor versions.

Any extra information you think will help me would be greatly appreciated. Like I said before, we have 1 ESXi server, running about 18 VMs. 2 of those are rather critical. Not 100% mission critical, but they can't see more than a couple hours of downtime. We want to add vCenter and will be looking to add another ESX server or 2 down the line. I would love any tips/suggestions.

 

[SpaceHonkey]

I can answer in regard to the processor question. Each license is for a single physical CPU (whether it's 1, 4, 8 cores). So, if your system has 2 physical CPUs you'll need 2 processor licenses.

 

[gimp0]

I don't believe you can buy vCenter anymore. You can buy vSphere essentials for $995 (MSRP) which covers 3 hosts with 2 processors each.

This will give you room to expand to 2 additional hosts.

Essentials Plus gives you HA and the Data Recovery (Backup Application)

Be aware that there is currently no upgrade path from essentials or essentials plus to the standard version if you wanted to do fault tolerance in the future.


Edit: Take a look at these docs to hopefully make it more clear, especially the 2nd one.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_essentials_datasheet.pdf

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

 

[Thuleman]

We currently have 1 ESXi server running and have budgeted for vCenter.

The thing is, for a single server you really don't need vCenter, or do you?

The you can basically not buy vCenter priced to manage a single host. There is VMware vCenter Server 4 Foundation for vSphere up to 3 hosts, that's the lowest you can go.

 

[mjn]

Why do you need vCentre for 1 ESX host?

 

[NetJunkie]

As others said, no need to buy it for just one. But if you're planning to add more servers later just do vSphere Essentials to start (or higher if you want the features that come with it).

I can answer in regard to the processor question. Each license is for a single physical CPU (whether it's 1, 4, 8 cores). So, if your system has 2 physical CPUs you'll need 2 processor licenses.

Not true anymore..well, it is until you hit >6 cores. Over 6 and licensing changes depending on your license level.

 

[mrgstiffler]

Thanks for all the help everybody. We are purchasing vSphere Essentials Plus. Now I have a few more questions.

Our current server is running ESXi 3.5 that was preinstalled by Dell. As I understand it, the licensing prevents it from being managed by vCenter. Is it pretty easy to switch the license to one of the ones that comes in our vSphere Essentials bundle? We will prolly also want to upgrade to ESXi 4. Is the upgrade pretty straight forward?

Also, is transferring licenses from one server to another easy to do? We are reprovisioning a second ESXi server until our budget allows us to purchase another one. Will we have trouble moving the license to the new server?

 

[geiger]

The upgrade is pretty straightforward, when you add the server to the cluster in vSphere it asks you which license to assign.

The ESXi licenses shouldn't really need to be transferred if you are using the free ones.