You cannot change the configuration of features either. VMs continue to run, but after shutting down the VMs, you cannot start them. When the evaluation period ends for an ESXi host, the host is disconnected from vCenter (if the host was added to the vCenter inventory).
It is recommended that you install a license until the evaluation period expires.
Thus, the full set of all possible features is available for 60 days. The set of features available for the evaluation period is the same as that available in the highest edition of VMware vSphere for ESXi hosts and vCenter Server accordingly.
The Evaluation ModeĪfter installing ESXi and vCenter, the 60-day evaluation starts for each product.
For more information, read about Free ESXi in this blog post. There is also a free ESXi license with limited functionality that allows you to run VMs on a standalone ESXi host. The amount of RAM and the number of running VMs are not limited by VMware licenses.
If a CPU has more than 32 cores, then an additional CPU license must be applied. A multicore CPU is counted as one CPU if the number of physical CPU cores is not higher than 32. You can also license two 2-processor servers and one 4-processor server. For example, if you have a vSphere license whose capacity is 8 processors, you can license two ESXi hosts with 4 processors each, or four ESXi hosts with 2 processors each. This provides flexibility if you use one license for licensing multiple ESXi hosts. A vSphere license has a certain CPU capacity and can be used for an ESXi host whose CPU number doesn’t exceed the capacity of the license. You can assign the same VMware ESXi license key (the vSphere license) to multiple ESXi hosts until the total number of processors exceeds the CPU (central processing unit) capacity allowed by the license.ĮSXi hosts are licensed with VMware vSphere licenses on a per-processor basis. License keys contain encrypted information about the purchased product edition and are not tied to hardware. VMware licenses are 25-character strings that contain letters and digits, divided into 5-character blocks with the “-” symbol. For example, you can install vCenter 7.0 to manage hosts running ESXi 6.7 and ESXi 7.0, but you cannot install vCenter Server 6.0 to manage hosts running ESXi 6.5. Older versions of vCenter Server cannot manage newer versions of ESXi. A version of your vCenter Server must at least match or be higher than the highest version of an ESXi host running in your environment that you want to manage by vCenter. VMware vCenter requires a separate vCenter Server license installed on your vCenter Server. VMware vCenter Server allows you to manage ESXi hosts, create data centers that are logical structures to group ESXi hosts, create clusters, migrate virtual machines between hosts, and so on. In this case, I recommend that you install vCenter Server. If you have multiple ESXi hosts, it is better to manage them centrally. If you use standalone ESXi hosts, buy the needed VMware vSphere license and install it on each ESXi host. There are two main VMware licenses in VMware vSphere: vSphere licenses for ESXi hosts and licenses for vCenter Server.
This blog post covers the principles of VMware ESXi licensing and explains how to install VMware licenses. VMware provides different editions of vSphere and vCenter for customers who deploy VMware vSphere to run VMs and build virtual environments. When you decide to start using VMware vSphere to run virtual machines on ESXi hosts in your environment, you need to define which license to buy and understand how to apply the ESXi license. So please feel free to leave us a message below in our comments section.By Michael Bose Licensing ESXi 6.x/7.0.x and vCenter Server 6.x/7.0.x If you have any questions or feedback on this guide, we would love to hear from you. If you are looking for a key for version 7.0, click here. If you are looking for a key for version 6.7, click here. If you are looking for a key for version 6.5, click here. If you are looking for a key for version 6.0, click here. If you need to use the many features VMWare has to offer, then you would need to purchase a correct licence and enter that instead.
When using this in a lab environment, you could use the stripped back version of VMWare ESX with unlimited usage using the serial number below (as detailed in the video): MN09P-4239L-18G40-0L1UP-CRH04 But, how to do you apply your serial number? We have created a quick video below to help you with this easy process: If you have set up VMWare ESX you will find that it defaults to the evaluation version giving you 60 days unlimited use.