confused about licensing pricing

[andrewmundon]

Hi

I've been looking into the advantages of virtualization, but I am still confused about the pricing. First off, I'm not looking to run a complex virtual mainframe or anything. I'm a one man show helping small business out, whether is watching or administering a sbs server or setting them up with cloud services. I'd like to virtualize their sbs servers for reduced downtime.

I'm confused about whether I can do this with the free version. I'm trying out ESXi (I think that's the one, I'm at home right now). To my understanding, when the trial is up I can continue using the hypervisor, but not vmsphere. If that's the case, how am I supposed to manage the server? Am I just supposed to log into the server and give up the ability to suspend vms?

I know this is a vmware forum, and I'm all for that, but would hyper-v or xenserver be a better alternative for my usage?

Thanks

[Sreejesh_D]

vSphere Hypervisro is a standalone product. It can be used to run multiple virtual machines on a single server hardware, but it cant be managed with the management utility vCenter server.

vCenter Server is required for the High availability features (VMotion, HA, FT etc) and resource management features (DRS, Storage DRS, etc) which VMware provides.

I've been looking into the advantages of virtualization, but I am still confused about the pricing. First off, I'm not looking to run a complex virtual mainframe or anything. I'm a one man show helping small business out, whether is watching or administering a sbs server or setting them up with cloud services. I'd like to virtualize their sbs servers for reduced downtime.

I'm confused about whether I can do this with the free version. I'm trying out ESXi (I think that's the one, I'm at home right now). To my understanding, when the trial is up I can continue using the hypervisor, but not vmsphere. If that's the case, how am I supposed to manage the server? Am I just supposed to log into the server and give up the ability to suspend vms?

Yes, you can create virtual machines for the enterprise servers and run on a Hypervisor server for better utilization of resources (CPU, memory, Storage etc).

We cant reduce the downtime much with a single vSphere Hypervisor without shared storage. Coz if the server goes down all the Virtual Machines(VM) will be unavailable until it comes back. Whereas two ESXi servers with shared storage can achieve maximum VM uptime with the vSphere features like vMotion, HA and FT.

Please refer the following Hypervisor FAQ for better understanding on vSphere Hypervisor.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/faq.html

[andrewmundon]

These are just SBS servers and they are not interested in running two servers. By minimized downtime I merely mean that if something were to happen to their server I could run over with a spare and load the VM on it from a local backup device and get them going while I troubleshoot the issue with their server.

I'd also like to use virtualization so I can make a new image for new clients during the day and load it in the evening instead of spending all weekend setting it up. Also, I'd love to save a copy of the vm before doing updates and stuff like that.

But still, I'm confused about the pricing. I will not need to run more than one server per site ever, but how should I back up and load images should I need to alter something?

[Sreejesh_D]

Thanks for clarifying. Please make it a bit more clear. What do you mean by "if something were to happen to their server"? SBS server (VM) or ESXi host?

[andrewmundon]

I mean both. Whether a patch doesn't agree with the OS or a power spike defeats the hardware, I'd like to install the backed up image onto a spare server (or reload if OS related) and keep downtime minimized.

[andrewmundon]

Another business in my area does this for their small business customers. They virtualize the OS, then should something go wrong, whether hardware or software related, they come over with a spare server and pop the image on there and then resolve the issue.

[vMario156]

andrewmundon schrieb:

Another business in my area does this for their small business customers. They virtualize the OS, then should something go wrong, whether hardware or software related, they come over with a spare server and pop the image on there and then resolve the issue.

Exactly this you can do with the free version of the ESXi hypervisor. Just put the harddisk in an identical server or get the VM back from your backup and you are up again.

But of course there are much better ways like mentioned above (where you need at least 2 servers and some licences).

Regards,

Mario

[andrewmundon]

Is there a vmware product that I can use like this?

[Sreejesh_D]

Since you have a spare server, why cant you build a cluster? instead of imaging/installing the spare server after the production is down. It will save a lot of administration efforts.

If investment on storage is the concern, you can go for vSphere storage appliance. You can find more details on it here.

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/vsphere-storage-appliance/overview.html

the advantage is you will get the features of shared storage which is base requirement for almost all Virtualization features (vmotion, HA, etc).

[RDPetruska]

Thread moved from Licensing to VMware ESXi 5.