Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
VMware vSphere Essentials Plus
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VMware vSphere Essentials for Retail and Branch Ofi ces
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You can't buy these kits on a per-CPU basis; they are bundled solutions for three servers.
vSphere Essentials includes one year of subscription; support is optional and available on a per-
incident basis. Like other editions, vSphere Essentials Plus requires at least one year of SnS; this
must be purchased separately and is not included in the bundle.
The Retail and Branch Ofi ces (RBO) Kits are differentiated from the “normal” Essentials and
Essentials Plus Kits only by the licensing guidelines. These kits are licensed per site (10 sites
minimum, with a maximum of three hosts per site), and customers can add additional sites as
required. Central management of all the sites via vCenter Server Standard is possible, though
vCenter Server Standard must be purchased separately. vCenter Server Essentials is included.
VMware also has Acceleration Kits, which combine the different components of the vSphere
product suite. There are three Acceleration Kits:
Standard Acceleration Kit: This kit includes one license of vCenter Server Standard plus
licenses for vSphere Standard Edition.
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Enterprise Acceleration Kit: The Enterprise Acceleration Kit includes one license of vCen-
ter Server Standard and licenses for vSphere Enterprise Edition.
Enterprise Plus Acceleration Kit: This kit includes both licenses for vSphere Enterprise
Plus Edition and a single license for vCenter Server Standard.
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While the Essentials Kits are bundled and treated as a single unit, the Acceleration Kits
merely offer customers an easier way to purchase the necessary licenses in one step.
Now that you have an idea of how VMware licenses vSphere, we'll review why an organiza-
tion might choose to use vSphere and what benei ts that organization could see as a result.
Why Choose vSphere?
Much has been said and written about the total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on invest-
ment (ROI) for virtualization projects involving VMware virtualization solutions. Rather than
rehashing that material here, we'll instead focus, briel y, on why an organization should choose
VMware vSphere as their virtualization platform.
Online TCO Calculator
VMware off ers a web-based TCO calculator that helps you calculate the TCO and ROI for a vir-
tualization project using VMware virtualization solutions. h is calculator is available online at
You've already read about the various features that VMware vSphere offers. To help you
understand how these features can benei t your organization, we'll apply them to the i ctional
XYZ Corporation. We'll walk through several different scenarios and look at how vSphere helps
in these scenarios:
Scenario 1
XYZ Corporation's IT team has been asked by senior management to rap-
idly provision six new servers to support a new business initiative. In the past, this meant
