vSphere 5 License Entitlements

A somewhat surprising popular topic at the moment considering the amazing features announced by VMware this week is vSphere 5 Licensing, I have seen a lot of people talking about this and a lot of confusion and misunderstanding of the new licensing model announced by VMware in vSphere 5. Hopefully this post and my script below will help people work out what their v5 License entitlements will be.


vSphere 5 License Overview

vSphere 5.0 will be licensed on a per-processor basis with a vRAM entitlement. Each vSphere 5.0 CPU license (whether deployed to a host or not) will entitle the purchaser to a specific amount of vRAM, or memory configured to virtual machines. The vRAM entitlement can be pooled across a vSphere environment and through linked mode vCenters to enable a true cloud or utility based IT consumption model.

vSphere Advanced is now being removed from the license editions, anyone who currently has licenses for vSphere Advanced – and is active on Subscription and Support – in v4 will automatically be entitled to Enterprise in v5 free of charge, the following vRAM entitlements will be given per license type:

License Type	Essentials	Essentials Plus	Standard	Enterprise	Enterprise Plus
vRAM	24GB	24GB	24GB	32GB	48GB

There are a few key things to remember about this:

• ·              vRAM is pooled per license type to create a pool
• ·              Make sure all license keys you have purchased are entered into vCenter
• ·              All Licenses (whether deployed or not) add Pooled vRAM capacity
• ·              Make sure existing vCenter servers are linked – vRAM licenses are pooled                                          across linked mode vCenters giving a total vRAM per license type.

More information on these changes can be found in the Licensing, Pricing and Packaging white paper here.