Licensing and Support Contracts

[shawnee2020]

Hi All,

I have a question regarding licensing and support contracts.  I have an environment which contains 6 brand new servers and 6 older servers.  We currently have a license(s) for VCenter Server Standard, VSphere Standard, Vsan Advanced which cover all of our servers.  However, the older servers support contracts are coming up for renewal.  And, it is that time to look at budgets.  We feel we will be using these older servers less so we are thinking of not renewing the support contract on the older servers. 

My question is:  Aren't the VCenter etc, license(s) perpetual?  If so, will my current VM environment continue to operate as normal?  And, we would only lose support on the older servers but they would continue to run as normal?

Thank you.

[scott28tt]

You would need sufficient licenses to continue to run the old hosts as well as the new ones.

It would be unusual not to have a fully supported environment, if you’re running anything like production workloads.

[shawnee2020]

Scott28tt - we would like it to be as well.  But, the old servers will be decommissioned/repurposed within this year.  We just don't want things to fall apart while we are moving things around.  Currently we have enough Licenses (i.e cores etc) to cover all of our servers as they are all being managed by 1 instance of Vsphere.   We were caught of guard regarding the support contract expiration.  And, just want to ensure that the VMware Licenses are perpetual.  Would hate to have to repurchase those.  They were pricey.   

[e_espinel]

Hello.
First of all VMware vSphere licenses are perpetual (they do not expire).
In the license status you can confirm it (expiration date:  Never), this means that it will continue to work.

What expires is the subscription and support contract. If the contract expires you will not be entitled to new versions, nor to direct support with VMware.

For a production environment it is always recommended to have a valid subscription and support contract.

[shawnee2020]

Thank you.  It is nice to know things won't fall apart while we continue to migrate and update our VM environment.

Thank you again.

Have a great day.

[DaveCoffey]

We are on vCenter 6 and will upgrade to vCenter 8.  Does vCenter require annual support past the initial purchase or just the vSphere 8 Enterprise hosts?

The line number for the vCenter license reads as below, so we're not sure if we need to keep buying annual support.

VLA VMW PROD SUP/SUB VMW VCENTER SERVER 8 STD FOR
VSPH 8 (PER INSTANCE) FOR 1 YR

[IRIX201110141]

Without SnS no free ugrade and no support ..  Doesnt matter if ESXi or vCenter.

 in the past VLA was the VMware Adapter for SAP Landscape Management.

[quartz201110141]

Hi scott28tt !

we have an infrastructure of 3 nodes and essential plus kit; the vmware version is 6.7

we want to upgrade to version 7

is it possible to subscribe to a support only for update and without the technical support

I have read about "subscription  only support"  for update only. What about ?

thanks in advance

[IRIX201110141]

Not possible and thats not how the game is played 😉

The "vSphere Essentials" is the one and and only SKU which is "Subscription" only without support. All others needs "Support and Subscription" (SnS).

If you buy OEM licenses than the Subscription comes from VMware and Support from your HW Vendor.

Regards,
Joerg

[quartz201110141]

Hi IRIX201110141,

thank you for your answer

no change 😉

otherwise Is it possible to downgrade from the essential plus license to the essential license ?
and of course i am aware we will lose all the services

the direction find the support too expensive and doesn't understand why we can't subscribe to only updates

regards

[nm22]

@IRIX201110141 What about Critical Security Updates to the software?
Without SNS, a customer should still be able to apply this right?

[nm22]

@e_espinel What about Critical Security Updates to the software?
Without SNS, a customer should still be able to apply this right?

[e_espinel]

Hello.
I attach link where to get the patch packages, it requires user and password (free registor) in VMware customer connect

.https://customerconnect.vmware.com/patch

[nm22]

@e_espinel thank you, so we dont need SNS for patch packages (KB)..