What do I realy need to buy, when I use ESXi?

[nordviks2]

Hi!

Is it just me, ore is it hard to navigate and understand the produc line and pricing on VMWare products? I find it rather confusin. Anyway, I'm going to start with a single installation on a IBM blade that has 2 CPU soccets each of them has 4 cores. I would like to unlock the CPU power, but nothing else at this time. Where can I do this and how much does it cost. We are only a small company with 2 employes, so we can't pay a billion dollars for this!

At a later time I would like to install ESXi on an other server and use VMotion and HA. Lets say this server has equal amount of CPU, how much would that cost?

Knut

[weinstein5]

Since it sounds like you are starting with a single ESXi server - download the free version and request a 2 CPU license this will allow you to install ESXi on to your and since VMware licenses to physical CPU and not cores you will be able to use all cores - this will give you an environment to become famniliar with ESX - now when your ready to add second server just repeat the process.

When you want to move to higher functioning of VMware - VMoiton, HA, DRS etc., you will need to spend money. You will have to buy licenses for a Virtual Center server which is required for to run HA, VMotion and DRS, you will need to buy Virtual Center Agent licenses, HA licenses, Vmotion Licenses and DRS Licenses for each ESX host and these are sold by the physical CPU. I know VMware sells bundled Accelleration Kits that includes these licenses but I do not know the cost -

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[mcowger]

If all you want is one host, you need to pay nothing - ESXi in its most basic form is free. if you want support, you will need to pay for that.

Once you move up to VMotion & HA, you'll need to buy licenses for the addl features. HA is $3K minimum, and Vmotion is $4K.

Of course, you could buy an acclerator pack that includes vmotion, drs, virtualcenter and 4 enterprise liceses for $30,486.00

--Matt

[nordviks2]

Thank you for the great answer! How do I request a 2 CPU license?

[weinstein5]

When you register for the download you will specifity the number of CPUs you need - the journey starts here - http://www.vmware.com/download/esxi/

[nordviks2]

$30,486.00??? We could newer aford that! We could not even afford $8K. Does not VMware have VMotion and HA for the small companies? This seems unfair and unlogical since they are trying with ESXi to reach the small companies. I even heard a CEO state this in a podcast. What they actually are doing is frustrating small businesses that want to pay, but don't have the same amount of money that the mid size/largecompanies have. Why can't we use the same software that everybody else can use? Is this etichal? The only option left for small companies that need HA and VMotion is pirecy!

Would not VMware earn more money by lowering the prices? There are a lot more small companiesthan there are mid size/large. I think they will have to do it if they are serious about ESXi !

[Craig_Baltzer]

When the competition gets VMotion and HA equivalent features then the price will likely drop; VMware has always dropped prices (or made it free) to stay competative based on past history:

• GSX use to cost thousands of $, then became Virtual Server and was "free" right about the time that MS Virtual Server entered the market

• ESX use to cost thousands of $, then a free "hypervisor only" ESXi came out right after MS Hyper-V shipped

MS is bringing out VMotion like capabilities with Windows Server 2008 R2 so I'd expect to see some VMware price cutting right about that time if history holds. Now if MS would just release System Center Virtual Machine Manager for free so we could get a price cut on Virtual Center

[nordviks2]

That is great news! I hope VMware release it as free and start licensing based on CPU sockets, and continue to let the first fix be free This model would be much more fair! Becouse large companies use many CPU sockets and small companies use only a few!

[Craig_Baltzer · Accepted solution]

The pricing is by socket now (roughly and is roughly $3.5K/socket (and you have to buy "2 sockets worth) if you want HA + VMotion), plus a Virtual Center Serevr ($2K for up to 3 ESX boxes, $6K to manage an unlimited number). So really the "entry point" for full functionality is $16K in licenses for two ESX servers and Virtual Center, plus server hardware (2 servers) and some kind of SAN/shared storage (for VMotion and HA)