Vmware Vsphere Editions And Licensing

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Zita Lifland

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:16:16 PM8/3/24

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With a wide range of products to offer, VMware has become one of the dominant players in the market. VMware vSphere is considered one of the most advanced, yet easy-to-manage virtualization platforms for managing and protecting virtual environments of any size. The number of licenses, editions, and latest features that VMware vSphere provides has grown over the years, which may sometimes cause confusion among users.

This blog post aims at providing an overview of the VMware vSphere editions and licensing in order to help you choose one that is the best suited for your virtual environment.
NAKIVO for VMware vSphere Backup

VMware vSphere (previously known as VMware Infrastructure) is a cloud computing virtualization platform that includes a set of server virtualization products, with ESXi hypervisor and vCenter functioning as its core components. VMware vSphere allows you to easily create and manage multiple virtual machines (VMs), distribute workloads across clouds and devices, provide on-demand scalability, ensure data security, and build a virtual environment that can comply with your specific business needs.

vSphere Standard Edition is a perfect choice for users who are new to virtualization, as it provides a basic level of server consolidation, VM-aware storage, and endpoint security for a minimum price. vSphere Standard Edition can be used by small businesses which intend to expand their activities over time, as it allows you to seamlessly scale up your virtual environment in case of increased output.

vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition enhances application performance and enables resource management. vSphere Enterprise Plus could be considered a more advanced version of vSphere Standard, and allows rapid deployment and provisioning of workloads, load balancing, as well as establishing the priority of VM resources. VSphere Enterprise Plus is mainly used by medium to large sized organizations.

vSphere with Operations Management provides a high-end virtualization platform that allows enhanced performance management. This is an optimal solution for businesses of all sizes, as it enables you to cut hardware costs as well as optimize infrastructure performance with the help of various IT services. These services include: capacity optimization, intelligent workload placement and rebalance, and health monitoring.

VMware vSphere Platinum is the latest edition of vSphere, which is essentially a combination of the core functions of VMware vSphere and VMware AppDefense. AppDefense is a VMware product that protects applications that run in virtualized environments. Thus, a high-level protection of data, infrastructure, and user access is ensured. VMware vSphere Platinum allows you to manage and secure running workflows, even in a case of a security incident. This edition of vSphere offers built-in security that operates on the basis of machine learning. This way, any threats in your virtual environment are automatically detected, which can ensure a prompt response from your side.

vSphere Acceleration Kits represent all-in-one convenience bundles that can be used to help customers to purchase all of the necessary components needed to build a new VMware environment. An acceleration kit typically includes six processor licenses for vSphere as well as a license for one instance of vCenter Server Standard. A special feature of vSphere Acceleration Kits is that their components can be upgraded and renewed individually, on your demand.

Small businesses choose VMware vSphere Essentials Kits because they function as all-in-one solutions that are capable of managing small virtual environments. Each of the vSphere Essentials Kits consists of six processor licenses for vSphere as well as a license for one instance of vCenter Server Essentials. Unlike vSphere Acceleration Kits, the components of the Essentials Kits cannot be scaled up or down individually, and any modifications are applied to the product as a whole.

The two types of vSphere Essentials Kits are differentiated: vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus. The vSphere Essentials Kit provides management of applications and server consolidation, which allows you to cut unnecessary costs; and makes it an ideal choice for small offices. vSphere Essentials is purchased along with a one-year subscription to software patches and updates. Support can be purchased by choice, and is available on a per-incident basis. A vSphere Essentials Plus Kit ensures the 24/7 availability of business services and operations, which is made possible by the addition of features such as vSphere HA, vSphere Data Protection, and vSphere vMotion, on top of the basic vSphere Essentials Kits. This type of kit is mainly designed for small businesses that want to ensure minimum downtime and high application availability, without incurring large costs. Support and subscription for Essentials Plus is purchased separately and it is active for one year.

VMware vSphere Desktop is a special vSphere edition that is used for managing desktop virtualization. This edition includes the features and IT services that are present in the vSphere Enterprise Plus edition. On-demand scalability, high availability, as well as capacity management allow you to easily monitor your desktop workloads. The vSphere Desktop edition is suitable for all customers who want to purchase vSphere licenses to implement desktop virtualization.

As many businesses are concerned with data protection and rapid recovery in a case of a disaster, building a remote site with IT infrastructure has become a necessity. vSphere ROBO Standard and vSphere ROBO Advanced are used for managing and maintaining IT infrastructure that is located off-site. These editions include 25 per-VM licenses. The flexible per-VM pricing model ensures that customers only deploy the number of workloads that they actually require in each DR site.

vSphere ROBO Standard provides a virtualization platform from which you can easily manage IT infrastructure at the remote site. Improved performance is enabled through various features, such as: High Availability, Data Protection and Replication, vMotion, Hot Add, vShield Endpoint, Fault Tolerance, Storage vMotion, Virtual Volumes, and Storage-Policy Based Management.

vSphere ROBO Advanced provides a virtualization platform which, apart from the set of pre-installed features and components of the vSphere ROBO Standard, also includes Host Profiles, Auto-deploy, Storage-Policy-Based Management, and Distributed Switch.

VMware vSphere 6.7 is licensed on a per-processor basis, without imposing any restrictions on the number of virtual machines, physical cores, or the amount of physical RAM. To install vSphere in a virtual environment, at least one license key should be assigned to each physical processor (CPU).

The VMware vSphere 6.7 license has a simple license key, which consists of an encrypted string of 25 characters (numbers and letters) that contain information about the acquired vSphere edition or kit, and the number of processors. A license key is not attached to a specific server, meaning that this key can be assigned to multiple vSphere hosts. However, note that the number of physical processors on those hosts should not exceed the number of processors encoded in the license key. Moreover, license keys can be assigned centrally through VMware vCenter Server or directly to individual hosts. There is no significant difference between directly and centrally assigned license keys.

With VMware vCenter Server, you can manage licenses that are assigned to vSphere hosts. VMware vCenter Server assigns a license key, then copies and saves it in the host. Even if the host loses connection with vCenter Server, the license key is kept active on the host, and can be saved there for a long period of time.

In the latest 6.7 version of vSphere, VMware has come up with the new features and capabilities in order to eliminate the gaps of the previous versions, improve the performance of IT organizations, and ensure that businesses can deal with the increased workload while keeping up with the latest trends in the industry.

VMware vSphere 6.7 is a reliable, flexible, and efficient virtualization platform. VMware constantly works to improve its functionality by adding more new features and improving the existing ones. With the help of vSphere 6.7, organizations can now build scalable virtual environments on the basis of a hybrid cloud for running, managing, and protecting their applications.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication is an efficient and flexible solution that ensures that your VMware virtual environment is fully protected with the help of VM backup, replication, and recovery. NAKIVO Backup & Replication presents its customers with various license types and editions from which you can choose the best-suited options for your IT infrastructure.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication includes the Director, Transporters, and backup repositories. The Director is the central component of the product, and is responsible for the management of various operations, including licensing. Only one license can be installed at a time. If needed, the license can be changed in the Configuration section. Moreover, NAKIVO Backup & Replication includes a 15-day trial license for 6 sockets.

In this case, CPU socket licensing is assigned for each physical VMware host that you use for VM backup or replication. Target hosts for your replicas, or hosts that are used for the recovery of VMs, do not require licensing. This licensing type is available on either a perpetual or subscription basis.

VM licensing is only provided for VMs that you back up or replicate. You do not need any additional licensing for replica VMs or recovered VMs. Per-VM licensing is available to certified NAKIVO Cloud Providers on a subscription basis. Moreover, Cloud Providers can increase or decrease the number of licensed VMs once a month.

There are three types of licenses: trial license, perpetual license, and subscription license. Perpetual licenses do not have an expiration date, while trial licenses and subscription licenses do have an expiration date. In a case of the license expiration, the functionality of NAKIVO Backup & Replication is disabled. To restore the functionality, simply install a new license.