Understanding VMware vSphere 7 Editions and FeaturesMustBeGeek

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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

vSphere Standard – Provides the basic features for server consolidation. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is mandatory when purchasing the vSphere Standard
vSphere Enterprise Plus – Provides the full range of vSphere features. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is mandatory when purchasing the Enterprise plus editions.
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.
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.