How to Justify Vcenter if you are running ESXi servers in standalone mode.

[phunkodelic]

I am having trouble comming up with ways to justify Vcenter as i am already running ESXi servers in standalone mode with an EMC SAN. I know its needed but how would one go about quantatively showing the value or ROI of Vcenter. It seems that the ROI calculators on VMware's site are geared toward a new install where ESXi and Vsphere do not have any presense at all. I some how have to make the bean counters happy so I can get this approved.

Thanks!

[Troy_Clavell]

If you are managing multiple stand alone ESXi Host, then a single point of management is helpful. But the keys to vCenter are HA and DRS. I think if you have more than 2 ESX hosts, than vCenter seems to be a good solution.

[amvmware]

I would have thought explaining to them the impact to the business if one of the hosts should fail, the lose of business and revenue and the fact that vCenter would mitigate this risk and offer additional features and functionality that would provide a resilient and redundant environment should be sufficient.

[phunkodelic]

Response to first post: I totally agree with you but if I gave an answer like that to accounting I would probably get kicked to the curb. 8-) Being a VCP I know the value of it but to put into dollars and cents so I can perfrom an ROI calculuation is the challange.

[Troy_Clavell]

Accounting doesn't manage your environment. What happens when you lose and ESXi host an all the guests attached to it go down as well. How would you explain that? What about load balancing of your environment for optimal performance.

It's your environment, not the accounting departments.

[amvmware]

I would agree with Troy - try the option i have suggested - spell out for them in $$$ the potential cost of losing a host and the VM's on that host - you may need to speak to the application owners to better understand the impact to the business of losing that application. You need to exert your authority as the person responsible for the Infrastrucutre and explain the implications of not having vCEnter and the risks the business is currently exposed to - if the busines is prepared to accept those risks then get another job.

How do you patch manage these hosts?

[phunkodelic]

Agreed. All good answers and i will make a case base on the points you guys have stated which was what i was thinking of initially but wondered how other folks have done it in the past. I am currently patching the servers by reloading ESXi or manually adding the patches when a new release comes out. Its not a huge deal with the exception that I always have to do it in the very late hours of the night when production is not running so I can take stuff offline. Yes, I know with vmotion I could patch my stuff during the day assuming I have the capacity onother servers to offload the VMs from the host that I am patching.

[sketchy00]

As many others have pointed out, it's not about what you can afford, but what are you willing to lose. One runs through the same ROI conundrum when you try to calculate a Disaster Recovery initiative. Since VCenter ties so closely with the ability to reduce downtime, it should play a pretty big part of the discussion.

"It's incalculacable" -- Michael Scott (The Office; 2009)