>Only limit is that you can create VMs with a maximum of 8 vCPUs per VM. See here under specifications: Free Virtualization with VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) | United States<
From what I understand, a key limitation not mentioned is there is no free client to manage the new hardware version VMs, which is what makes the enhancements available. I'm on ESXi 5.1 and VM hardware level 7 because there was no client at the time for 5.5, and paying to upgrade then REDUCED the functionality of the free version. To that end I have a few questions:
1. I'm on 5.1. If I upgrade to 6.0, will I gain the ability to use NFS version 4.1 with my hardware version 7 VMs?
2. What does it cost to get a client that can manage the new features? In the past, paying to upgrade added limitations to the free version. That has always been my problem with ESXi. It either forces me to pay nothing or a lot. The stuff in the middle just didn't make sense, so it became nothing. I have no problem spending money, as long as it is cost effective. I don't care about silly little things like their backup software. I'm doing that with free scripts now. I need a client that can manage the new VMs, either a client that uses legacy web app technology, or a modern Windows app.
3. I currently have VMware Workstation 9. It was supposed to be able to be able to copy VMs to ESXi, and have them run, but that was never real. There was always something, nics, etc. that made it not real. Managing vSphere VMs from Workstation was also terribly slow compared to the client. Is there any real strategy that would make sense in conjunction with VMware Workstation that would help make an upgrade make sense?
If there is no strategy that makes sense, it doesn't make sense for me to upgrade Workstation or vSphere.
Thanks!