vSphere Essentials Kit 1

[danramirez]

Hi Guys,

I have a server in the office (Dell R410)where I have 3 VMs installed.

The server has ESXi 5.0 with the free license, which I got from VMWare website. Note this license only supports one physical CPU.

I now need to install an additional CPU to the same server and I'm planning to buy one of the VMware licenses. I only have one physical server and don't think that I will have more.

Looking at the vmware website I found a boundle called vSphere Essentials Kit, which seem to be a good deal as it's under 600 dollars.

Question is: if I buy that vSphere Essentials Kit, will I keep all my VMs after entering the license key?

I don't need vMotion or anything like that, I just need to add an extra CPU to my server, and I want VMware to recognize that CPU.

Thanks in advance, regards,

Daniel

 

[Provogeek]

Some clarification first:

The free ESXi hyper-visor does not have a single CPU limit in it. You can add that second CPU to it with out purchasing a full license for the product. The only hardware limitation to worry about is the 32GB vRAM limit (you can not allocate more than 32GB of RAM total for all virtual machines running on the host). Other limits is not being able to manage it with vCenter and not being able to configure it through CLI.

That said, if you still go forward with the Essentials pack, you loose nothing. It is just a license key.

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Brent Schmidt Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple[/color red]

http://www.kiscc.com

Novell Platinum Partner Microsoft Gold Partner
VMWare Enterprise Partner Citrix Gold Partner

 

[danramirez]

Thank you Provogeek,

I thought there was a CPU limit of one with the free ESXi Hyper-visor... After reading your post I will go ahead and add the CPU to the server and won't buy the license yet.

Thanks a lot.

Regards,

Daniel

 

[danramirez]

Provogeek, I have installed the CPU and worked perfectly. Thanks very much, you saved me +500 dollars.

Regards,

Daniel

 

[ArizonaGeek]

Just as a side note the other big limitation of the free version is that there is no easy way to back up the virtual servers. So hopefully you are backing up the servers as if they were physical with an agent on them.

Glad your CPU worked.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[Billz66]

I also found that if the server had more than 32G it came up in an unworkable state and I couldnt deploy any ova files.

I had to remove RAM so that the server only had 32G in it to get the free esxi 5.0 to run properly.

I also had Dual cpu's no problems there...

If I never did anything I'd never done before , I'd never do anything.....

 

[danramirez]

Hi again,

My server has 4 VMs already and I am worried about what will it happen if I loose my server... Remember that I am using the free license of VSphere ESXi 5.0.

I think it's about time to get another server and probably purchase son vmware licenses.

Question is: What is the cheapest package that I could buy in order to have redundancy of my virtual machines on a secondary server? I would like my VMs to migrate to the secondary server in case of failure, also I would be interested in VMotion so I could move my VMs at any time.

Appoligies if my questions are of obvious answers, I'm not an expert on VMware... All I know I have learnt from reading online and forums.

Thanks in advanced. Regards,

Daniel

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[Provogeek]

You will want the Essentials Plus kit

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/small-business/compare-kits.html

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Brent Schmidt Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple[/color red]

http://www.kiscc.com

Novell Platinum Partner Microsoft Gold Partner
VMWare Enterprise Partner Citrix Gold Partner

 

[jkupski]

A side effect that you are going to discover once you cluster these machines for failover is licensing of the software in the guests. Microsoft is, in particular, very unfriendly to virtualization, in that they tie your license to physical hardware, not to a VM, and the act of vMotioning the VM from one host to the other creates a potential unlicensed situation.

For a very simple example, imagine that one of your VMs were running Windows 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2. If that VM is HA or DRS enabled, Microsoft would expect you to have two licenses of each, one for each host, even though you were only running a single VM.

The issue is a LOT more complex than this (for example, enterprise editions may have different virtualization rights than other editions, software assurance may allow for the migration, etc) but the point is that before implementing your HA solution, you need to take a hard look at what software you're using, in what ways, lest you get hit with an unhappy surprise.

 

[Provogeek]

A side effect that you are going to discover once you cluster these machines for failover is licensing of the software in the guests. Microsoft is, in particular, very unfriendly to virtualization, in that they tie your license to physical hardware, not to a VM, and the act of vMotioning the VM from one host to the other creates a potential unlicensed situation.

For a very simple example, imagine that one of your VMs were running Windows 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2. If that VM is HA or DRS enabled, Microsoft would expect you to have two licenses of each, one for each host, even though you were only running a single VM.

The issue is a LOT more complex than this (for example, enterprise editions may have different virtualization rights than other editions, software assurance may allow for the migration, etc) but the point is that before implementing your HA solution, you need to take a hard look at what software you're using, in what ways, lest you get hit with an unhappy surprise.

This is incorrect when it comes to virtualization. The only thing that comes close to this kind of scenario is when you do a P2V of a physical machine running Windows using an OEM license key. The OEM license key is actually tied to the physical hardware (indicated by the little sticker on the server that gives the OS activation key). So when the P2V is done and you boot up the new virtual machine, it will come up with an activation warning. A simple call to M$ corrects this. According to the EULA, you are not supposed to P2V an OEM license key because it is tied to hardware, but M$ will still activate the machine for you. For legal reasons though (or CYB), you do need to hold onto the physical server until the VM OS using OEM gets retired or replaced. Oh, and this applied to 2003 only, M$ changed the way activation is handled in 2008 to be more virtualization friendly.

As far as an OS activation issue related to vMotion, HA, or DRS? That is not true either, and I have nothing to give to provide any scenario that even comes close. One can vMotion, HA, DRS to their hearts content and if an activation issue comes up, you're doing something wrong in vSphere. This may be an issue seen in XEN or Hyper-V (which I have no experience with), it is not an issue with vSphere to worry about.


=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple[/color red]

http://www.kiscc.com

Novell Platinum Partner Microsoft Gold Partner
VMWare Enterprise Partner Citrix Gold Partner

 

[jkupski]

Brent,

I'm not talking about issues like activation. I'm talking about what Microsoft considers to be licensed use of "their" software. I suggest you see the following: Licensing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 to Run with Virtualization Technologies. Please note that it's talking about volume licenses, not OEM licenses. See page 10. I'll quote:

The same licensing rules apply to Windows Server Clustering Services as VMotion and System Center Virtual Machine Manager. While VMotion and System Center Virtual Machine Manager move instances of virtual OSEs between physical servers, the licenses remain with the physical server to which they were assigned. When an instance is moved to a new physical server, that new server must already have appropriate licenses assigned to it (see “Clustering, Failing Over, and Moving Instances” above). Since Windows Server 2008 Datacenter permits an unlimited number of instances of the server software to run in virtual OSEs, in multi-server installations with VMotion, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, it offers the greatest flexibility to move instances between servers without having to track the number of instances running or worry about being under licensed.

For Windows Server software, except in a few cases (see “Assignment of Licenses” above), licenses may only be reassigned to new hardware after 90 days. This, however, does not restrict the dynamic movement of virtual OSEs between licensed servers. As long as the servers are licensed and do not simultaneously run more instances than the number for which they are licensed, you are free to use VMotion and System Center Virtual Machine Manager to move virtualized instances between licensed servers at will.

You'll see similar verbiage through their other licensing documents. It's fairly absurd in some instances. If you read the SQL 2012 licensing document, it touts "licensing a VM" as a benefit.... then later on, tells you that you can only vMotion that VM if the license is covered by an active SA subscription, otherwise both hosts must be licensed.

My company just went through a Microsoft audit, and we got bit in this area. I heartily recommend to anyone going through a virtualization initiative to understand the issue before implementing. Not doing so can result in a significant unplanned expense.

 

[theravager]

At this point in the game I would just plan to put the free version of hyper v 2012 in for your platform and you get every feature for free (including replication for dr)