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Which vSphere 6.0 Features are available in Editions?

VMware vSphere 6 has been released to the market 4 weeks ago. There are many new features and enhancements, but as you know there are different pricing and licensing models. It is available as a la carte licensing priced on a per CPU basis or in packs of 25 VMs and for small deployments as Kits. This post takes a look on the availability of new vSphere features in different vSphere editions.

  • VMware vSphere Standard (A la carte licensing on a per CPU basis)
  • VMware vSphere Enterprise (A la carte licensing on a per CPU basis)
  • VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus (A la carte licensing on a per CPU basis)
  • VMware vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standard (Priced in packs of 25 VMs)
  • VMware vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Advanced (Priced in packs of 25 VMs)
  • VMware vSphere Essentials Kit (All-in-one solutions for up to three physical servers)
  • VMware vSphere Essentials Plus Kit (All-in-one solutions for up to three physical servers)

Virtual Volumes
Virtual Volumes is the completely new virtual machine disk management and integration framework that enables array-based operations at the virtual disk level.
VVOL is available in all vSphere Editions (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus)
VVOL is available in ROBO Editions
VVOL is not listed for Essentials Kits

Multi-CPU Fault Tolerance
vSphere Fault Tolerance has been enhanced to support protection of virtual machines with up to four vCPUs and 64GB of memory.
vSphere Enterprise Plus and ROBO Advanced supports 4 vCPU Fault Tolerance
vSphere Standard, Enterprise and ROBO Standard supports 2 vCPU Fault Tolerance
(Multi-CPU) Fault Tolerance is not listed in Essentials Kits

Cross vSwitch / Cross vCenter / Long Distance vMotion
With vSphere 6.0 you can migrate Virtual Machines across virtual switches, vCenters and accross routed connections with a RTT of up to 100ms. More information on vSphere 6.0 vMotion Enhancements here.
Cross vSwitch vMotion is available in all vSphere Editions
Cross vSwitch vMotion is available vSphere Essentials Plus Kit
Cross vCenter vMotion is available in vSphere Enterprise Plus only
Long Distance vMotion is available in vSphere Enterprise Plus only
Cross vSwitch vMotion is not listed for ROBO Editions
Cross vCenter vMotion is not available in vSphere Standard, Enterprise, ROBO and Essentials
Long Distance vMotion is not available in vSphere Standard, Enterprise, ROBO and Essentials

Virtual SAN Enhancements
As Virtual SAN is sold separately, it is not included in any editions. If you already own a Virtual SAN license, it includes all Virtual SAN 6.0 features, except All-Flash. The new All-Flash architecture is available as add-on and priced at $1,495 per CPU or $30 per desktop. (Source)

vSphere Network I/O Control Version 3
Network I/O Control in vSphere 6 enables administrators to reserve (guarantee) bandwidth to a vNIC.
Network I/O Control enhancements are only available in Enterprise Plus
Network I/O Control is not available in vSphere Standard, Enterprise, ROBO and Essentials

vSphere Data Protection Enhancements
VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced has been consolidated into vSphere Data Protection 6.0. The advanced edition is no longer sold separately.
VDP is available in all vSphere Editions (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus)
VDP is available in all ROBO Editions
VDP is available in Essentials Kits

Content Library
The Content Library centrally manages virtual machine templates, ISO images, and scripts, and it performs the content delivery of associated data from the published catalog to the subscribed catalog at other sites.
Content Library is available in all vSphere Editions (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus)
Content Library is not listed for ROBO Editions
Content Library is not listed in Essentials Kits

General vSphere 6 Enhancements
Lots of enhancements are not bound to specific features and available in all vSphere Editions

  • Host Scalability
  • ESXi Security Enhancements
  • VM Hardware Version 11
  • Platform Services Controller
  • Enhanced Linked Mode
  • vCenter Server Appliance
  • vSphere Web Client

6 thoughts on “Which vSphere 6.0 Features are available in Editions?”

  1. hi,

    could you please tell us whether storage vMotion feature is supported and included in VMware vSphere 5.5/6.0 Essential Plus Kit

    Thanks in Advance

    Regards,
    Vignesh

    1. I have checked a running 5.5 Ess Plus Kit installation. Storage VMotion is not supported. If you try a migration of a running vm, a message comes up "Storage vmotion is not licensed on this host. if you want to move between datastores, shut down the vm...". sth like this.

      Kai

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