Now that vSphere from VMware is officially available, the first thing on many people’s minds is “when can I get it?” Ok, so maybe you aren’t quite that eager to uproot the stability of your virtual datacenter and upgrade to the latest and greatest next weekend, but the new featureset is compelling enough to start thinking about it. One notable change to vSphere is the new licensing model. Here’s the summary (from VMware) on what’s different:
- License keys are simple 25-character strings instead of complex text files.
- License administration is built directly into VMware vCenter Server. There is no separate license server which must be installed and monitored.
- Customers receive only one single license key for a given vSphere edition (e.g. Advanced). There are no separate license keys for advanced features, such as VMware VMotion.
- The same vSphere license key can be used on many VMware ESX hosts. Each license key encodes a CPU quantity which determines the total number of ESX hosts that can use the license key.
- It is no longer using the VMware Infrastructure 3 licensing server or licensing model.
In most cases this is going to make everyone’s life a little easier. As far as upgrade from VI 3… as long as you are current on your maintenance you can transition your current license keys over to the new model. Note that you do need new keys. You current VI 3 keys will not work in vSphere.
From VMware:
For every active support and subscription contract with an end date on or after the day VMware vSphere becomes generally available, customers will receive their equivalent vSphere 4 and/or vCenter Server 4 licenses.These can be found in the new VMware vSphere license portal.
Go forth and upgrade!
We are planning to upgrade our QA datacenter in the next week or two, so look for first look coverage here on VMHero coming soon!
Just remember, while using vSphere with legacy hosts (VI3), a license server is still required, until all hosts are upgraded to ESX(i) 4.0
You mention that there are no licence keys for vMotion, etc. What about those that bought Standard + vMotion in VI3, they will get vSphere Standard + vMotion + Storage vMotion so surely there will be some ad-hoc licensing in order to cover this scenario?
[...] licensing: Percolating thoughts vSphere Pricing Comparison Quick Guide to vSphere License Portal vSphere Licensing Explained License Server Configuration for vCenter Server 4.0 Licensing ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter 4.0 [...]
Craig, you bring up a good question on feature licensing. Basically, the way it works is that it is possible to add features onto a vSphere edition license. This add-on is fixed, which means it is done by VMware at the time of license delivery and that feature cannot be separated from the edition at a later stage. The key that they provide will include the edition + features.
To see what all of the mappings look like and what license you are entitled to with your upgrade, check out this section of the licensing page:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/licensing.html#c140623
I have two Vsphere4 servers running with a enterprise license.
I want to change the two servers to standard editions.
Can I change the license without formatting the server?
Luis –
In vSphere you can simply change your license key for a given server through vCenter Licensing. There should not be a need to reformat the hosts with a licensing change. However, make sure that you fully understand the implications of the SKU change, particularly in terms of what functionality will no longer be available.