vSphere Standard: Guest Max CPUs

[shane_presley]

We have an ESX 4.0 host with a standard license.  It has 2 quad core processors in it.

I have a RedHat Enterprise 5 64bit guest VM, and would liek to assign all 8 processors.  But when I start it up I get an error "Virtual machine has 8 virtual CPUs, but the host only supports 4"

I imagine this must be a licensing thing, but I couldn't find the 4 vCPU limit in the comparison doc https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html or the pricing guide http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

What am I missing?

Thanks

[kjb007 · Accepted solution]

Only enterprise plus license allows 8-way vSMP.  The others support 4 vCPU max.

-KjB

[kjb007]

The vCPU entitlement in the comparison link you sent shows the difference in licensing.

[vmroyale]

Hello.

Yes, it is a licensing thing and 4 is the max for Standard.  This can be confirmed in kb 1010579.

Good Luck!