VMware offers dozens of products, but at its core is vsphere, its virtualization platform, and vcenter Server, its management family. Understanding VMware's vsphere, vcenter and vcloud licensing is critical to determining whether VMware virtualization is right for an organization. Since ESX5.1,the license is back to CPU sockets with an unlimited amount of vram. However the free version of ESX5.1i is limited to a physical amount of 32GByte. There is no limit to the number of virtual machines that can run on a free ESXi host. It is designated for a single server, so administrators cannot use the VMware vsphere Client to manage more than one ESXi host at a time. VMware for SMB environments(min. 505 1 st year) For SMBs, VMware offers the Essentials and Essentials Plus bundles, for 445+60SnS and 3105+778SnS, respectively. Both bundles provide ESX or ESXi for up to three two-processor servers, where each processor may not have more than six cores. The Essentials Plus bundle adds vmotion, VMware High Availability (HA) and VMware Data Recovery. VSphere for the Enterprise (min. 1151 1 st year) All VMware's enterprise vsphere editions are licensed per processor, where a processor can have either up to six or up to 12 cores, depending on the edition. VMware places no restrictions on the number and kind of virtual machines (VMs) that can be hosted on a server, but it does require the purchase of at least one year of SnS per license. 1 / 8
VSphere Standard Edition includes a choice of ESX or ESXi, VMFS, four-way virtual SMP (vcpus), the vcenter Server Agent, the vstorage APIs or VCB, vcenter Update Manager, vmotion, VMware HA, and vstorage Thin Provisioning. It is priced at 895+256:SnS per processor. VSphere Advanced Edition builds on Standard Edition with the addition of VMotion, hot-add, Fault Tolerance, Data Recovery and vshield Zones. It is priced at 1795+377:SnS per processor VSphere Enterprise Edition builds on Advanced Edition with the addition of Storage VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), and Distributed Power Management (DPM). It is priced at 2585+545:SnS per processor. VSphere Enterprise Plus Edition includes all the features of the lesser editions, plus Host Profiles and the vnetwork Distributed Switch. It can be purchased for 3145+661:SnS per processor. For $3,995, it can also include the Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch. There are also "bulk kits" which combines 6 processor licenses plus an applicable vcenter edition wih one VSA edition. Total Price reduction is about 35%. VMware vcenter Server Editions (min. 1836 1st year 2 / 8
) VMware vcenter Server provides unified management for vsphere environments and is a required component of a complete VMware vsphere deployment. One instance of vcenter Server is required to centrally manage virtual machines and their hosts and to enable all vsphere features. SnS is required for at least one year. There are three vcenter Server editions: the version included in the vsphere Essentials bundles, vcenter Server Foundation, which provides management for up to three servers with two processors each for 1345+491:SnS, and vcenter Server Standard, which is priced at 4495+945:SnS but does not impose limits on the number of hosts it can manage. VMware imposes a minimum of one year of SnS on all vcenter licenses. VMware vsphere Storage Appliance (min. 3 / 8
3806 1 st year) VSA is revolutionary software that turns servers into shared storage. This means high availability, vmotion and automation all without shared storage hardware. vsphere Storage Appliance is compatible with vsphere 5 only, and requires one instance of vcenter Server. SnS is required for at least one year. Cost is 3145+661:SnS VMware vcloud Suite Editions (min. 5440 1 st 4 / 8
year) vcloud is a cloud computing initiative (2008) from VMware which will allow customers to migrate work on demand from their "internal cloud" of cooperating VMware hypervisors to a remote cloud of VMware hypervisors. The goal of the initiative is to provide the power of cloud computing with the flexibility allowed by virtualization. vcloud is also called the Sodftware-Defined-DataCenter. vcloud architecture relies on vshield edge for its operation, routed networks in vcloud needs a VM running 5 / 8
vshield-edge software, acting as the default gateway of that network. This virtual gateway is implemented on a free host on the system and provides its services to VMs on that host and on other hosts. VMware vcloud Suite 5.1 is a complete, integrated cloud infrastructure suite that simplifies IT operations while delivering the best SLAs for all applications. Cloud Suite 5.1 is licensed per processor, the same as vsphere 5.x Enterprise Plus, which is included in all editions of vcloud Suite. 6 / 8
vcloud Editions VMware vcloud Suite Standard VMware vsphere Enterprise Plus, VMware vcloud Director, VMware vcloud Connector Advanced, VMware vcloud Networking and Security Standard. 4495+945:SnS VMware vcloud Suite Advanced VMware vcloud Suite Standard plus vcenter Operations Management Suite Advanced. 6745+1416:SnS 7 / 8
VMware vcloud Suite Enterprise VMware vcloud Suite Advanced plus vfabric Application Director for Provisioning, vcenter Site Recovery Manager Enterprise, vcloud Automation Center. 10350+2171:SnS 8 / 8