VSphere Licensing Overview

Executive Summary

This guide will provide an overview of licensing and packing for VMware vSphere as well as vSphere with Operations Management. It will focus mainly on vSphere 6 as it is the most current vSphere edition at the time of writing this.

Licensing Overview

VMware vSphere with Operations Management 6 licensing: Per-Processor

VMware vSphere w/ Operations Management is licensed on a per-processor basis. Each physical processor CPU in a server needs to have exactly one vSphere with Operations Management processor license key assigne to be able to run vSphere with Operations Management.

No Limits on the Number of Virtual Machines

There are no restrictions on the number of VMs that can run on each properly licensed vSphere with Operations Management 6 Processor.

No Limits on physical resources

There are no restrictions on physical cores of VM's that can run on properly licensed vSphere with Operations Management 6 Processor.

Two Components Under a Single License

VMware vSphere with Operations Management 6 combines two components (vSphere and VMware vRealize™ Operations™ Standard) into a single product with a single license. All virtual machines running on a properly licensed VMware vSphere with Operations Management Processor can use all components.

VMware vSphere 6 licensing: Per-Processor

vSphere 6 licensed on a per-processor basis. Each physical processor in a server needs to have at least one vSphere 6 procressor license key assigned to be able to run vSphere.

No Limits on the Number of Virtual Machines

Like vSphere 6 with operations management there are no restrictions on the number of VMs that can run on each properly licensed vSphere with Operations Management 6 Processor.

No Limits on physical resources

Like vSphere 6 with operations management there are no restrictions on physical cores of VM's that can run on properly licensed vSphere with Operations Management 6 Processor.

VMware vSphere 6 for Virtual Desktop Deployments 

VMware vSphere Desktop is specifically designed for licensing vSphere when used to run virtual desktops. It can only be used as a virtualization platform for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments with either VMware Horizon® View™ or third party connection brokers. For more details, see the Packaging Overview section.

Example: Licensing New Hosts with vSphere with Operations Management 6 

A user has two 2-CPU (each with 6 cores) hosts with 128GB of physical RAM each that they wish to license with vSphere with Operations Management 6 Enterprise edition. Each physical CPU requires a license, so four vSphere with Operations Management 6 Enterprise licenses are required. No additional licenses will be needed regardless of the number of virtual machines, amount of virtual memory (vRAM) or physical cores or RAM.

vSphere Editions

vSphere Standard Edition, vSphere Enterprise Edition and vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition