vSphere 5.5 License Limitations (Essentials Plus)

[doofoo]

I keep running into conflicting reports on the following question about licensing limitations.

I have a meeting tomorrow with a vendor and vmware to clear them up, but figured I could get ahead of them tonight with the experts on forum here.

I am purchasing vSphere 5.5 Essentials Plus licenses, which I know includes 3 hosts, 2 Sockets/ea.

The vendor is stating that there is a (6) core per socket limitation on the license. I've read, and heard from other vendors that this limitation was removed in 5.1 and 5.5 but can not find evidence of this.

I am about to pull the trigger on servers, and was going to purchase 2 x 8 core per server - if this limitation exists it would waste licenses and I would not be able to run a 3 server cluster due to license exhaustion. Can anyone clear this up for me?

Thanks!

 

[MysticRyuujin]

There's no limit on cores. It's per physical CPU.

 

[m1abram]

Well this probably does not mean anything, however I have the free version of Esxi 5.5 and just checked the license on it and it shows as being "licensed for 2 physical CPU (Unlimited cores per CPU)".

I checked because I currently have 2x 6 core chips in it and just acquired 2 8 core chips that I plan to swap in this weekend.

 

[MysticRyuujin]

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

That shows for vSphere 5:

"No Limits on Physical Resources
There are no restrictions on physical cores or physical RAM with
vSphere 5."

 

[NetJunkie]

The core limitation thing is old. That's gone.

EDIT: But you can't go above 3 hosts w/ Essentials Plus. That's the big limit.

 

[Wrench00]

The core limitation thing is old. That's gone.

EDIT: But you can't go above 3 hosts w/ Essentials Plus. That's the big limit.

It all depends what you are running. For a small company its plenty.

I have one company 3 hosts AMD clusters 2 CPU 16 Cores a piece and 128 Gigs of ram per host. You can run quite a bit.
Those buying essentials are never going to run 1000+ guests.

 

[NetJunkie]

It all depends what you are running. For a small company its plenty.

I have one company 3 hosts AMD clusters 2 CPU 16 Cores a piece and 128 Gigs of ram per host. You can run quite a bit.
Those buying essentials are never going to run 1000+ guests.

Agreed. But just warning people that if you DO plan to ever go beyond 3 it's going to cost you as you have to upgrade host and vCenter licenses.

 

[doofoo]

Or just run multiple instances of Essentials.. Multiple vCenter, etc..

 

[Wrench00]

Or just run multiple instances of Essentials.. Multiple vCenter, etc..

You can't legally. You can only do so if the software is on another "site" there is a ROBO licensing.

You need to purchase Acceleration packs if you want to run more.

 

[doofoo]

You can't legally. You can only do so if the software is on another "site" there is a ROBO licensing.

You need to purchase Acceleration packs if you want to run more.

I was under the understanding with some of the vmware reps that it's also okay when it's different divisions within the company.

I know quite a few "smaller" companies that have their IT divisions split up where one doesn't have access to the others infrastructure. Those are the situations I have heard it discussed.

 

[Wrench00]

I was under the understanding with some of the vmware reps that it's also okay when it's different divisions within the company.

I know quite a few "smaller" companies that have their IT divisions split up where one doesn't have access to the others infrastructure. Those are the situations I have heard it discussed.

I think that's a bit of a grey area. I am not sure to be honest with you.

 

[NetJunkie]

It depends. Not supposed to have more than one at a single site but as said above, some companies have different divisions w/ different IT and those seem to be fine. Unless you're really taking advantage I doubt your rep is going to care.