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As we consider the vSphere Standard kit (vCenter Standard+vSphere) proportionally too expensive in comparison with Essentials Plus Kit, we would buy 2x Essentials Kit. But the question is, is it possible to run 2 instances of vCenter Essentials on 1 host with Windows2008 ? Or it must be 1 host = 1 vCenter ?

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Why would you need to run 2 instances? Can you not install both Kit licenses in one vCenter instance? – joeqwerty Jun 9 '11 at 11:31
Essentials kits are limited to three hosts, no way to upgrade or expand that. – HampusLi Jun 9 '11 at 12:05
Look, I need 6 hosts support (actually 2x group by 3). It is cheaper to get 2 Essentials Plus Kit licenses than 1x Standard Kit. So why not go this way and pay the money you are not forced to pay. That's why I'm asking this question. – John Jun 9 '11 at 12:10
You'd be better off asking your licensing vendor. – Graeme Donaldson Jun 9 '11 at 12:26
@HampusLI: I understand the licensing I'm asking if it's possible to install the licenses from 2 Essentials Kits in 1 vCenter instance. – joeqwerty Jun 9 '11 at 13:05
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up vote 2 down vote accepted

It's not supported (and I don't think it's actually possible) to install two instances of vCenter on the same server.

But if you are short on hardware, you can install them on two virtual servers; it's totally supported to run vCenter on a virtual machine.

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up vote 1 down vote

You could run two VM's with totally separate vCenter essential install.

However buying Esssential seriously locks you in without an upgrade /scaling path. Standard licensing will cost more initially but you will not loose that investment when you scale up.

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Thanks for the response, but you are not right actually - Essentials pack can be upgraded to one of the higher licenses - Vmware vSphere Essentials Upgrade Path – John Jun 9 '11 at 12:13
I did this for a little while while we transferred data off our old VMware cluster (3.5) to the new cluster (4.1). As long as they are different VMs it works perfectly. – Scott Warren Jun 9 '11 at 12:14
@mejmo: Good news, not much of a discount on the upgrades though. At least something. – HampusLi Jun 9 '11 at 12:33
Moreover, the result of upgrade to Standard is 6 processors. Not 8, as the Standard edition is. – John Jun 9 '11 at 12:42
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up vote 1 down vote

I resolved it, buy installing another vCenter in Hyper-V virtual machine on that host.

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