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VMware vSphere Hypervisor
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Please see below for licensing options, pricing and availability.
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Product Information
VMware vSphere is a powerful virtualisation platform that enables you to bring the power of cloud computing to your IT infrastructure. VMware vSphere dramatically reduces operating costs and increases control over IT infrastructures, while preserving the flexibility to choose any OS, application and hardware.
With VMware vSphere you can protect your business with complete data protection for all your virtual machines with automated backup. Eliminate planned downtime with vMotion, which lets you move your virtual machines live between servers without any service disruption. Free yourself from menial tasks with VMware vSphere’s management automation capabilities and provision new applications in minutes, not weeks.
Available in several different editions, VMware vSphere delivers targeted benefits to small business and mid-size and enterprise business customers.
Documents & Downloads
» VMware vSphere 5 - Pricing and Licensing Guide
» VMware vSphere 5 - What's New
New Features
What's new in VMware vSphere 5
Compute
- ESXi Convergence - the gold standard in hypervisors delivering a thinner architecture and more security in a highly optimised hypervisor
- Auto Deploy - deploy and patch vSphere hosts in minutes
- New virtual-machine format - now supports USB 3.0 devices and 3D graphics for Windows Aero
- Support for Apple Xserve - guest OS support for Apple Xserve servers running OS X Server 10.6.
Storage
- vSphere Storage DRS - enable more efficient storage usage through grouping, placement and balancing of storage for VMs
- Profile-driven storage - identify the most appropriate storage to use for a VM based upon the service level
- vSphere file system - get enhanced scalability and performance through a non-disruptive upgrade to the platform's latest clustered file system version
- vSphere Storage I/O control - improve management and enforcement of SLAs through the extension of limits and shares in the NFS datastores
- vSphere storage API program - take advantage of extensions to the Array Integration API and Storage Awareness and Discovery API.
Networking
- vSphere network I/O control - per VM controls help enable more granular SLA enforcement
- vSphere Distributed switch - improves the visibility of VM traffic through NetFlow and enhances monitoring and troubleshooting through Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) and Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) support.
Application services
- vSphere High Availability - introduces simplified setup and configuration and expanded scalability
- vSphere Motion - now you can migrate VMs over high-latency networks
- ESXi Firewall - restrict access to specific services by IP address or subnet
- Larger virtual machines - VMs can now have up to 32 CPUs and 1TB of RAM
Management services
- vSphere web client - the new web client lets you access vSphere from anywhere with Internet access and a Web browser
- VMware vCenter Server Appliance - vCenter Server is now available as a Linux-based virtual appliance.
Features
Infrastructure services
Compute
- VMware ESXi - provides a robust, production-proven, high performance virtualization layer that abstract server hardware resources and allow their sharing by multiple virtual machines. Unique memory management including memory compression and advanced scheduling capabilities of the vSphere host allow for the highest consolidation ratios and the best application performance, in many cases, even better than physical servers
- vSphere DRS - aggregates compute resources across many clusters and dynamically allocates them to virtual machines based on business priorities
Storage
- vSphere Storage DRS - leverages automated load balancing based on storage characteristics to determine the best place for virtual machine data to live
- Profile-driven storage - streamlines storage resource selection by grouping storage according to a user -defined policy
- Auto Deploy - allows you to deploy more vSphere hosts running the ESXi hypervisor architecture “on the fly'. Once running, completely eliminate patching by pushing out updated images rather than scheduling patch windows
- VMware storage I/O control - defines priority access to storage resources according to established business rules
- VMware storage VMFS - is a high performance cluster file system which abstracts away the complexity of storage hardware from applications
- VMware Storage Thin Provisioning - allows storage purchases to be deferred until they are really required, reducing storage spending by up to 50%
- VMware Storage APIs for Array Integration - offer a new API structure for supported 3rd party disk arrays to improve performance for common vSphere activities such as provisioning a VM
Network
- VMware network I/O control - define priority access to network resources according to established business rules
- VMware network distributed switch - simplifies and enhances the provisioning, administration and control of virtual machine networking in VMware vSphere environments
- Support for 3rd party switch technology such as the Cisco Nexus 1000V for simplified network management across both virtual and physical assets
Application services
Availability
- VMware vMotion - eliminates the need to schedule application downtime due to planned server maintenance through live migration of virtual machines across servers with no disruption to users or loss of service
- VMware storage vMotion - eliminates the need to schedule application downtime due to planned storage maintenance or during storage migrations by enabling live migration of virtual machine disks with no disruption to users or loss of service
- VMware High Availability - provides cost effective, automated restart within minutes for all applications in the event of hardware or operating system failures
- VMware Fault Tolerance - provides continuous availability, without any data loss or downtime, to any application
- VMware Data Recovery - provides simple, cost effective, agentless backup and recovery for virtual machines.
Security
- VMware vShield Zones - simplifies application security by enforcing corporate security policies at the application level in a shared environment, while still maintaining trust and network segmentation of users and sensitive data
- VMware VMsafe - enables the use of security products that work in conjunction with the virtualization layer to provide higher levels of security to virtual machines than even physical servers.
Scalability
- VMware DRS dynamically load balances server resources to deliver the right resource to the right application based on business priority; allowing applications to shrink and grow as needed
- Hot add enables CPU and memory to be added to virtual machines when needed without disruption or downtime
- Hot plug enables virtual storage and network devices to be added to or removed from virtual machines without disruption or downtime
- Hot extend of virtual disks allows virtual storage to be added to running virtual machines without disruption or downtime.
Features are edition specific - please see the editions section.
Licensing
vSphere 5 sees major changes to the licensing of a vSphere environment. The new licensing model is per processor (CPU) with vRAM entitlements. Each vSphere 5 CPU licence includes a specific amount of vRAM which can be pooled together if multiple licences of the same edition are purchased (amounts vary - please see the edition's section for specifics).
vRAM itself is defined as the virtual memory that is configured to the virtual machine. When a virtual machine is turned on the vRAM configured for that machine counts against the total vRAM entitled. To maintain licence compliance you should ensure each active physical processor has a vSphere licence and that a 365-day moving average of daily high watermark of vRAM does not exceed the pooled vRAM capacity.
An exception to this licensing scheme is for the VMware vSphere Desktop edition which has an unlimited vRAM entitlement and is designed for VDI deployments only. It is licensed on the total number of powered-on desktops.
For further details please refer to the licensing PDF in the documents & downloads section. The essentials kits and acceleration kits have some specific licensing restrictions so we recommend you contact us to confirm requirements before purchasing.
Editions
VMware vSphere Standard
- 1 CPU per licence, 32GB vRAM entitlement, 8-way vCPU entitlement
- Includes thin provisioning, update manager, data recovery (agent-less disk-based backup), high availability (automated VM restart following physical failure), vMotion (migrate running VMs between hosts) and vStorage APIs for data protection.
VMware vSphere Enterprise
- 1 CPU per licence, 64GB vRAM entitlement, 8-way vCPU entitlement
- Includes all the Standard features plus virtual serial port concentrator, hot add (add cpu and memory without downtime), vShield Zones (basic application firewall), fault tolerance (continuous availability with zero data loss), vStorage APIs for Array Integration, storage APIs for multipathing, storage vMotion (migrate live VM disk files across storage arrays), distributed resources scheduler (DRS) and distributed power management (DPM) (provide load balancing and power consumption optimisation).
VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus
- 1 CPU per licence, 96GB vRAM entitlement, 32-way vCPU entitlement
- Includes all the Enterprise features plus storage I/O control (prioritise storage access on business needs), network I/O control (prioritise network access on business needs), distributed switch (perform cluster-level network aggregation), host profiles, auto deploy (deploy hosts in minutes), storage DRS (enable more efficient storage usage through grouping, placement and balancing of storage for VMs) and profile-driven storage (group storage according to user-defined policy).
VMware vSphere Essentials Kit
- Supports up to 3 servers with 2 processors each, 192GB total available vRAM, 8-way vCPU entitlement
- Centralised management with vCenter for Essentials
- Includes thin provisioning, update manager and vStorage APIs for data protection.
VMware vSphere Essentials Kit for Retail and Branch Offices
- Designed for deployments in branch offices of mid-size and large enterprises
- Requires a maximum of 3 virtualised hosts per site and the minimal initial order of a starter kit (covers 10 sites)
- vRAM entitlements are pooled across sites with central management by a single remote VMware vCenter Server.
VMware vSphere Essentials Plus Kit
- Supports up to 3 servers with 2 processors each, 192GB total available vRAM, 8-way vCPU entitlement
- Centralised management with vCenter for Essentials
- Includes all the Essentials features plus data recovery (agent-less disk-based backup), high availability (automated VM restart following physical failure) and vMotion (migrate running VMs between hosts).
VMware vSphere Standard Acceleration Kit
- Supports 8 processors - scalable with additional licences, 256GB total available vRAM, 8-way vCPU entitlement
- Centralised management with vCenter Server Standard
- Includes thin provisioning, update manager, data recovery (agent-less disk-based backup), high availability (automated VM restart following physical failure), vMotion (migrate running VMs between hosts) and vStorage APIs for data protection.
VMware vSphere Enterprise Acceleration Kit
- Supports 6 processors - scalable with additional licences, 384GB total available vRAM, 8-way vCPU entitlement
- Centralised management with vCenter Server Standard
- Includes all the Standard Acceleration Kit features plus virtual serial port concentrator, hot add (add cpu and memory without downtime), vShield Zones (basic application firewall), fault tolerance (continuous availability with zero data loss), vStorage APIs for Array Integration, storage APIs for multipathing, storage vMotion (migrate live VM disk files across storage arrays), distributed resources scheduler (DRS) and distributed power management (DPM) (provide load balancing and power consumption optimisation).
VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus Acceleration Kit
- Supports 6 processors - scalable with additional licences, 576GB total available vRAM, 32-way vCPU entitlement
- Centralised management with vCenter Server Standard
- Includes all the Enterprise Acceleration Kit features plus storage I/O control (prioritise storage access on business needs), network I/O control (prioritise network access on business needs), distributed switch (perform cluster-level network aggregation), host profiles, auto deploy (deploy hosts in minutes), storage DRS (enable more efficient storage usage through grouping, placement and balancing of storage for VMs) and profile-driven storage (group storage according to user-defined policy).
VMware vSphere Desktop
- Includes all the functionality of vSphere Enterprise Plus and unlimited vRAM entitlements
- Can only be used for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments - working with both VMware View and other 3rd party VDI connection brokers.
Support
Basic Support
- 12x5 Mon-Fri support for 1, 2 or 3 years
- Unlimited support via phone or Web (target initial response time for severity 1 issues: 4 business hours)
- Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
- Product updates and upgrades
- Up to 4 support admins per contract
Production Support
- 24x7x365 support for 1, 2 or 3 years
- Unlimited support via phone or Web (target initial response time for severity 1 issues: 30 minutes)
- Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
- Product updates and upgrades
- Onsite Support for Exceptional Escalations
- Up to 6 support admins per contract
Per-Incident Support
- Buy as a single pack, 3 or 5 pack
- Provides support for a specific issue and may involve several interactions with technical support before resolution
- Please Note: VMware does not offer incident based support on all their products.
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