VMware ROBO License

Recently there was some discussion over licensing in Facebook vExpert group.

One of the users questioned about licensing 3 hosts, each placed at one location. He wants to be able to do a snapshot and monitor the health of the ESXi host. He intends to add a fourth host in future. He was also told by the account executive that vSphere Essential cannot meet this requirement.

Let me explain some of the information which might be not clear enough.

vSphere Essential and Essential Plus kit is a bundle that comes with vCenter Server Essential (which is not available for sale) and vSphere Essential/Essential Plus licensing. ]vCenter Server Essential can only manage up to three ESXi servers. The vSphere Essential kit allows you to license up to 3 hosts or 6 CPUs whichever come first. But you cannot license more than 3 hosts even if each only has 1 CPU. This is because vCenter Essential can only manage up to 3 ESXi hosts. Also, the licensing would not allow you to manage using a vCenter Server Standard edition.

Check out the site here for comparison including ROBO licenses.

vSphere ROBO office comes in packs of 25 VMs. It has 2 editions namely, Standard and Advanced. Just check out the comparison above. You might find 25 VMs is quite a number, however, you are allowed to split the license to a smaller amount via the license portal. Meaning, you can deploy the vSphere ROBO license to multiple remote sites up to a maximum of 25 VMs per site which is declared as ROBO.

In this way, customers do not need to spend buying vSphere Essential/Essential plus which is the cheapest kit available, for a remote site. This helps many customers save on cost with vSphere ROBO licensing.

Hope this explains and give you a better understand how vSphere ROBO licensing is applicable and how to use it.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why VMware or Why Not after Broadcom?

VMware by Broadcom, A New Chapter Forward

VMware vExpert 2024 Application is Now Open!