About Licensing

[Cem Barut]

Hi!

There is a voice from every head about vmware esxi licensing and we are very confused about this issue and we do not want to make a mistake. We want to increase the number of CPUs on some servers, but we cannot upgrade because there is a free version, we need 16 cpu, which license should we get for this. 

Product used: ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-standard 

[ggathagan]

Your best option will depend on how many servers you have and what vSphere features you want.

Broadcom has reduced the vSphere licensing to three versions: vSphere Essentials Plus, vSphere Standard and vSphere Foundation.
Each of those are subscription-based only; no perpetual license. 
After the initial 60-day evaluation expires, if you do not have an active license,  the host hardware will disconnect from vCenter server and VMs will not start up again if they've been shut down.

Each edition also has additional licensing restrictions.

Here a PDF, last updated in March 2024, comparing the different editions:
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/docs/vmw-datasheet-vsphere-product-line-comparison.pdf

Essentials Plus includes vMotion (NOT Storage vMotion ) and High Availability.
vMotion allows for the movement of VM's between properly configured hosts without shutting down the VM.
In the event of the failure of a physical host, HA allows the automatic restart of VMs after they've been automatically moved to a working host via vMotion.

Among other features, vSphere Standard includes Storage vMotion, allowing for the movement of VMs between properly configured datastores while the VM is running.

That document only lists licensing by core.
vSphere Essentials Plus allows for up to 96 cores, across a maximum of three physical servers.
However, you have to license it for the maximum core limit of 96, regardless of how many you actually need.

Licensed by core, vSphere Standard has a limit of 32 cores per physical CPU.
vSphere Standard has also adopted a required minimal licensing of 16 cores per server, regardless of how many physical CPUs and cores the server has.

Other documentation states that you have the option of licensing vSphere Standard by core, by CPU, by VM or by vSphere+ subscription capacity.

Here's VMware's description of the different licensing options for Sphere Standard, also updated in March of 2024:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/8.0/vsphere-vcenter-esxi-management/GUID-710CD935-DBF4-4AF6-A4F7-ED35E552DE4C.html

From that article:
Per core licensing is based on ..." the total number of the physical CPU cores for each CPU on all ESXi hosts in your environment.
Each core requires a single license, and the minimum license capacity you can purchase is 16 cores per CPU. "

Per Virtual Machine Licensing ..."The license use equals the total number of powered on desktop virtual machines running on the hosts that are assigned such a license."

Per CPU licensing ..."one CPU license covers one CPU with up to 32 cores. If а CPU has more than 32 cores, you need additional CPU licenses."
They state that "you can assign a vSphere license for ten 32-core CPUs to any of the following combinations of hosts:

    Five 2-CPU hosts with 32 cores per CPU
    Five 1-CPU hosts with 64 cores per CPU
    Two 2-CPU hosts with 48 cores per CPU and two 1-CPU hosts with 20 cores per CPU"

I can't swear to the accuracy of this article from, March 2024, but it lays out the per core pricing models for vSphere Essentials Plus and vSphere Standard.
https://4sysops.com/archives/vmware-vsphere-editions-licenses-and-prices-for-the-smb-market/#rtoc-4

All of the above is a VERY long way of saying:
It depends...

Regards,

Grant