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Pawel_Kowalski

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vSphere Server vs vSphere client (New To VM Questions)

I am looking to visualize my very small environment so that I can use Veeam backup (Backup Exec 2012 has been a nightmare) and I hope to be able to make live migrations of virtual machines to help with disaster recovery.

Veeam has a enterprise license for fairly cheap, $1,200 a host. Very simple.

However, vSphere licensing is a web that I can't seem to untangle. They have 2 versions of the server from what I can tell, standard ($6K) and foundation ($2K).

In addition it seems I need "vSphere Standard" which goes for another $1K.

Can someone explain what each component is or point me to a simple document that explains all of this? If I buy vSphere server foundation and vSphere Standard can I live migrate virtual machines? What about the free eSXI 5.1 server (which I am using now)? Would simple buying vSphere without the foundation server allow me to do these migrations?

Do I need a vSphere server and client license for the target host which would only be there for disaster recovery?

Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I am unable to completely figure the license scheme out. Help would be greatly appreciated.

I have SBS 2011 which only needs to be one guest OS. I also have a physical SQL server that I can keep physical for now, as it's not part of any domain. Finally I have a server I would like to be the recovery server if something happens to my production environment (ideally this server will sit off-site and I will be able to do live migrations to it).

Thanks.
VMwareVirtualizationStorage SoftwareVeeam

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Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

8/22/2022 - Mon