Plain Virtualization

Decided to write a post on this as I receive just too times the questions from different customers due to the confusion. Say if you are using a free edition of the vSphere Hypervisor or you are on any purhcased editions of vSphere, and you like to licensed it or upgrade to the next edition.  Now you have the new license key what do you do? This is the most asked question: 1. Do I need to reinstall the ESXi server applying a new license key? Answer is No.  You just need to either go to the Hypervisor via the vSphere client, select the host and on the right under the Configuration Tab and choose Licensed Features.  Click on Edit and enter your serial key.  Alternative if  you have a vCenter, just select Home>Administration>Licensing and choose Manage vSphere Licenses.  The features of the edition you have purchased or licensed will be activated and shown. 2. Can vSphere 5.0 serial keys work in vSphere 5.1? Answer is Yes.  All vSphere...

Recently I was asked by some customers who have not yet start virtualization.  They asked which technology should they choose?  Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Oracle VM, Citrix Zen or even Redhat KVM. I would like to take this as a neutral perspective here.  Here I do not want to be bias against any technology but rather be open about it and to start at the base and looking towards the goals. What is your reason that you are going to start virtualization? Many wanted to do because they see people doing it and they believe it is cost saving.  Have you assess if this is really cost saving for yourself?  For one reason, if you are paying hosting of your server workload, would you really bother about if it is virtual or physical for the SLA you have paid for? Once you have determine your reason on virtualization, next we talk about what do you want to achieve out of virtualization? Many talk about TCO, ROI and really the cost savings.  Honestly all ...

I came across this incident which is really minor but can get you wasting time troubleshooting.  If you are currently running the free ESXi server and have also purchase a licensed copy, you may encounter this error when trying to add an ESXi host to the vCenter. "The host is licensed with VMware vSphere Hypervisor. The license edition of vCenter Server does not support VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor." Let me explain this. Prior to purchase a licensed vSphere edition, you would have entered the free license on the ESXi server to run a standalone ESXi server.  This license is also known as VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor.  This is as show below.  It is limited to 32GB of physical memory with unlimited core or processor. When adding this host to the vCenter, if you did not enter the vSphere license into the vCenter prior adding the free standalone ESXi server, you will NOT be prompted to change the license. In this case, you will encounter the above err...