license status vmware vpshere 6

[Tewffik]

Hi all,

i need to know somethings about licensing status about my "vmware license"

i have this on my 3 ESXi hosts:

"Produit: VMware vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus Autorised for 1 physical CPU (unlimited cores per CPU)
Clé de licence: xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Expired:Never"

So nobody knows if the company bought a license or not!

May be it was evaluation license, but to my knowledge the trial version expires after 60 days and this never expire !

Can you tell me please how to do check and understand what does it mean this status?

Thanks

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
If your license has "Expired:Never" it is a paid license.
Demo licenses have expiration date, free licenses are VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.

Your company should have a VMware account with user and password from where the licenses are managed. The previous administrator should have these details.
The company should have an invoice for the purchase of the license(s).
If you cannot find your company's VMware account (user and password), but you have the purchase invoice, you should contact VMware customer service to recover your account or register it

[Tewffik]

Hello e_espinel

Thank you for your answer, very clear

i don't know where find this invoice for the purchase , and i think it's impossible also to have the vmware account.

So expired is never, it's perpetual license !?

So i need to know if i can upgrade vmware vsphere directly from v6 to v7 , and it's necessary to buy new license, may be or no

I am not yet very comfortable with vmware vsphere to understand its licenses and what should I do in this current context.

should i conact VMware customer service to know anythings about this license? or i will purchase now one.

Because, the need is to add new physical CPU on one of my three servers (Dell)

Any suggestions please to properly address this point

Best regards

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
In general VMware licenses are perpetual, but there are some temporary licenses which have an expiration date (usually they are kit and last for one year, their cost is quite low).

According to your first post you have the license
VMware vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus Authorised for 1 physical CPU

At the ESXi host level this license is the most expensive and has all the active features.

The 6 license is not compatible for version 7, each version has its own unique license.

You must verify very well the Hardware of the server to see if it is compatible with version 7.

You could try contacting VMware customer service and try to locate the company's account.
If you are lucky and your company registration exists you could request access to it (new user and password) they will ask you for several legal documents from your company. You should use your company email.

[Tewffik]

Hello,

So i understand that is necessary to buy new one for vsphere 6.7 or 7

I search the web, and there are several license type:

vSphere Standard Edition
vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition
vSphere with Operations Management
VMware vSphere Platinum

VMware vSphere Acceleration Kits
VMware vSphere Essentials Kits ( Essentials and Essentials Plus)
VMware vSphere Desktop
vSphere ROBO Standard and vSphere ROBO Advanced

i think VMware vSphere Essentials plus Kits is what i need, but i sould upgrade vsphere from v6 to v6.7 or v7

With this, i can purchase 3 CPU to install each one on each server, and make vCenter server because it's included in the Essentials Plus

Iss this approach correct?

Thanks

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
The 6 licenses are valid for versions 6.0, 6.5 and 6.7.
In the following link you can validate the hardware compatibility of your servers.

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/search.php

In this other link you can check more details about VMware licenses.

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-vsphere-pricing-whitepaper.pdf

The essentials kits include a vcenter essentials license that can only manage 3 esxi essentials hosts.

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-vsphere-essentials-kits-datasheet.pdf

In versions 7 and 8 there are significant changes in its structure and some hardware devices (disk drives, network cards, HBA and more) are no longer supported.

The versions 6.5 and 6.7 will be End of General Support by October 15th, 2022, but Technical Guidance for the versions 6.5 and 6.7 is available until November 15, 2023.

Personally I am recommending my customers to stay on version 6.7 for a while and plan to upgrade to version 8 as long as the hardware allows it.

[Tewffik]

Thank you very match espinal