Datasheet

W H I T E P A P E R / 5
VMware vSphere 5
SnSisrequiredforallvSpherepurchases
Licensing Example
In this section we will go over the key elements of VMware
vSphere 5 licensing using an example.
Licensing new hosts with vSphere 5
For this example, a user has two 2-CPU (each with 6 cores) hosts
with 128GB of physical RAM each that they wish to license with
VMware vSphere Enterprise edition. Each physical CPU requires
a license, so a minimum of four VMware vSphere 5 Enterprise
licenses are required. Each VMware vSphere 5 Enterprise license
provides a vRAM entitlement of 64GB. This means that with 4 vSphere
Enterprise licenses the user creates a vRAM pool of 4 x 64GB = 256GB
So far the user has not created any virtual machines, so he has not
configured any capacity of the vRAM pool.
Hosts 2
CPUs 4
VMware vSphere licenses 4 (Enterprise Edition)
vRAM capacity 256GB (4 licenses x 64GB/license)
vRAM used 0GB
Pooling allows DRS and vMotion across hosts
Next, the user starts to create virtual machines. The user creates
50 virtual machines each having 4GB of vRAM, and plans to deploy
them across the two hosts (~12 virtual machines per CPUs). Both
hosts are in the same vRAM pool as they are connected to the same
vCenter Server and are running the same VMware vSphere edition.
This vRAM pool allows VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
(DRS) and VMware vMotion to move the virtual machines between
any of the CPUs without needing additional licenses. Even if all
50 virtual machines were running on a single CPU, no additional
vRAM capacity would be required, because the pooled vRAM
entitlement would not be exceeded.
Hosts 2
CPUs 4
VMware vSphere licenses 4 (Enterprise Edition)
vRAM capacity 256GB
vRAM used
200GB
(50 virtual machines x 4GB/virtual machine)
Licensing vSphere 5 for virtual desktops deployments
VMware introduced a new vSphere edition, vSphere Desktop,
specifically designed for licensing vSphere when used to run VDI.
vSphere Desktop is not subject to vSphere 5 licensing with pooled
vRAM entitlements. It can only be used as virtualization platform
for VDI deployments with either VMware View or other third
party connection brokers. For more details see next chapter.
License Management
VMware vSphere 5 licenses are still simple license keys (25-character
alphanumeric strings) that contain encrypted information about
the VMware vSphere edition or kit purchased and the processor
quantity. These license keys do not contain any server-specific
information and are not tied to a specific piece of hardware. This
means that the same license key can be assigned to multiple VMware
vSphere hosts, as long as the sum of physical processors on those
hosts does not exceed the encoded license quantity in the license key.
Centralized Licensing with No Single Point of Failure
VMware vCenter Server is the recommended interface for license
assignment to VMware vSphere hosts. When a license key is assigned
by VMware vCenter Server, it is copied to the host and saved in a
persistent format. If the host becomes disconnected from VMware
vCenter Server, the license key remains active on the host indefinitely,
even after a host reboot. Only a deliberate licensing operation by
the user can remove or replace a host license key.
Decentralized Licensing Option
Although VMware recommends that customers assign all
VMware vSphere licenses centrally through VMware vCenter
Server, customers also have the option to assign their license
keys directly to individual hosts. There is no dierence between
directly and centrally assigned license keys. When a VMware
vSphere host is added to the VMware vCenter Server inventory,
any license key already on the host will become available for
management, reporting and assignment in VMware vCenter
Server, just like any license key added directly via VMware
vCenter Server. For more information on VMware vSphere
licensing, visit http://www.vmware.com/support/licensing.html.