Understanding VMware vSphere 7 Editions and Features

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VMware vSphere is a server virtualization product that combines the VMware ESXi hypervisor and VMware vCenter server. There have been several licensing changes with the release of vSphere version 7. One of the biggest changes that affect all the license editions was from an important announcement made on February 3, 2020, about updates to VMware’s per-CPU pricing model. Effective April 2, 2020, you will need one license for up to 32 physical cores. If a CPU has more than 32 cores, additional CPU licenses will be required. In this post, we are going to look at the different VMware vSphere 7 editions and the features supported on them.

Understanding VMware vSphere 7 Editions and Features

vSphere 7 licenses are delivered as license keys, which are made up of 25-character alphanumeric strings. When purchasing a license, you can choose between the Basic Support or the Production Support options. Different license editions are,

vSphere Main Editions

1. vSphere Standard – Provides the basic features for server consolidation. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is mandatory when purchasing the vSphere Standard
2. vSphere Enterprise Plus – Provides the full range of vSphere features. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is mandatory when purchasing the Enterprise plus editions.
3. vSphere Essentials kit – The essentials kit is an all in one solution for small environments with up to 3 hosts (2 CPUs on each host). Support is optional when purchasing the essentials kit and is available on a per-incident basis.
4. vSphere Essentials Plus kit – This is similar to the Essentials kit and provides additional features such as vSphere vMotion, vSphere HA, and vSphere replication. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is sold separately, and a minimum of one year of SnS is required.

Features
vSphere Standard
vSphere Enterprise Plus
vSphere Essentials
vSphere Essentials Plus

vSphere Hypervisor
•
•
•
•

vSphere vMotion®
•
•

•

VMware vCenter® Hybrid Linked Mode
vCenter Server Standard™
vCenter Server Standard

vSphere Virtual Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)
•
•

vSphere High Availability (HA)
•
•

•

vSphere Storage vMotion®
•
•

vSphere Fault Tolerance
2-vCPU
8-vCPU

VMware vShield Endpoint™
•
•

•

vSphere Replication™
•
•

•

Support for 4K native storage
•
•

vSphere Quick Boot™
•
•

•

vCenter High Availability
vCenter Server Standard
vCenter Server Standard
vCenter Server for Essentials
vCenter Server for Essentials

vCenter Backup and Restore
vCenter Server Standard
vCenter Server Standard
vCenter Server for Essentials
vCenter Server for Essentials

vCenter Server Appliance™ Migration
vCenter Server Standard
vCenter Server Standard
vCenter Server for Essentials
vCenter Server for Essentials

TPM 2.0 support and virtual TPM
•
•

FIPS 140-2 compliance and TLS 1.2 support
•
•

•

VM encryption

•

Support for Microsoft virtualization-based security (VBS)
•
•

•

Per-VM Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
•
•

VMware Instant Clone
•
•

Identity federation with Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
•
•

vSphere Trust Authority™

•

Content Library
•
•

APIs for storage awareness
•
•

Storage APIs for array integration and multipathing
•
•

vSphere Virtual Volumes™
•
•

Storage policy-based management
•
•

Next-generation infrastructure image management
•
•

vSphere Distributed Switch™

•

Host Profiles and vSphere Auto  Deploy™

•

vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler™ (DRS) and vSphere Distributed Power Management™ (DPM) –

•

vSphere Storage DRS™

•

vSphere Network I/O Control and vSphere Storage I/O Control

•

Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) support

•

vSphere Persistent Memory™

•

NVIDIA GRID vGPU

•

Proactive HA

•

Predictive DRS

•

Accelerated graphics for VMs

•

Dynamic vSphere DirectPath I/O™

•

vCenter Server Profile

vCenter Server Standard

vCenter Server update planner

•

VMware vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Editions

VMware vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Editions are designed for an IT infrastructure located in remote/distributed sites. These editions include 25 VM licenses of vSphere Remote Office Branch Office. The following table shows the different options available for Remote Office Branch Office Editions.

Features
vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standard

 

vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Enterprise
vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Advanced

 

vSphere Hypervisor
•
•
•

vSphere vMotion
•
•
•

vSphere Virtual SMP
•
•
•

vSphere HA
•
•
•

vSphere Storage vMotion
•
•
•

vSphere Fault Tolerance
2-vCPU
4-vCPU
4-vCPU

vShield Endpoint
•
•
•

vSphere Replication
•
•
•

vSphere Quick Boot
•
•
•

vCenter High Availability
vCenter Server Foundation
vCenter Server Foundation
vCenter Server Foundation

vCenter Backup and Restore
vCenter Server Foundation
vCenter Server Foundation
vCenter Server Foundation

vCenter Server Appliance Migration
vCenter Server Foundation
vCenter Server Foundation
vCenter Server Foundation

FIPS 140-2 compliance and TLS 1.2 support
•
•
•

Support for Microsoft VBS
•
•
•

Identity federation with ADFS
•
•
•

Content Library
•
•
•

APIs for storage awareness
•
•
•

vSphere Virtual Volumes
•
•
•

Storage policy-based management
•
•
•

Next-generation infrastructure image management
•
•
•

Host Profiles and vSphere Auto Deploy

•
•

vSphere Distributed Switch

•
•

Limited DRS (maintenance mode only)

•

VM encryption

•

Storage APIs for array integration and multipathing

vSphere Network I/O Control and vSphere Storage I/O Control)

SR-IOV support

vSphere add-on for Kubernetes feature

New in vSphere 7 when enabled on your ESXi host, it allows you to use Kubernetes on your vSphere cluster. A cluster that is enabled for vSphere with Kubernetes is called a Supervisor Cluster. To enable this on your cluster, assign a VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus with Add-on for Kubernetes license to all ESXi hosts that you want to use as part of a Supervisor Cluster. Below are the features provided by the vSphere add-on for the Kubernetes feature.

 

vSphere add-on for Kubernetes feature

 

 

DESCRIPTION

Application-focused Management
Enables VI admins to organize multiple objects into a logical group and then apply policies to the entire group

VMware Tanzu™ Kubernetes Grid™ service for vSphere
Allows developers to manage consistent, compliant and conformant Kubernetes clusters

vSphere Pod service
Allows developers to run containers without managing VMs or Kubernetes clusters

Storage service
Allows developers to manage persistent disks for use with containers, Kubernetes and VMs

Network service
Allows developers to manage virtual routers, load balancers and firewall rules

Registry service
Allows developers to store, manage and secure Docker and OCI images

vCenter Server editions

vCenter Server provides centralized, unified management for the objects in vSphere environments like hosts and VMs. It is a requirement for a complete vSphere deployment. One instance of vCenter Server. vCenter Server is available in the following packages:

• vCenter Server for Essentials – Management for vSphere Essentials Kits.
• vCenter Server Foundation – Provides management for smaller environments looking to rapidly provision, monitor, and control VMs.
• vCenter Server Standard – Highly scalable management with rapid provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, and control of all VMs in a vSphere environment. vCenter

 
 

vCenter Server Essentials

 

vCenter Server Foundation

 

vCenter Server Standard

Number of hosts
Up to 3
Up to 4
Unlimited

vSphere licenses managed
vSphere Essentials and vSphere Essentials Plus
vSphere Standard, vSphere Enterprise Plus and VMware vCloud Suite®
vSphere Standard, vSphere Enterprise Plus and vCloud Suite

After knowing different vSphere 7 editions and features, it will be helpful for companies to purchase right edition of vSphere based on the company’s requirements.