Running vSphere Hypervisor on Remote Offices: A Costly Proposal

As a VMware administrator, I’ve been tasked with deploying vSphere Hypervisor on a number of floating branch offices, also known as vessels. While the free version of vSphere Hypervisor is usable in many scenarios, I’ve hit a roadblock when trying to connect these off-site installs to my existing vCenter instance. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible in the free edition, and licensing the installs to make this a possibility is not feasible due to cost.

After investigating the costs of licensing the installs, I discovered that I would need to purchase VMware vSphere Standard licenses for all the vessels. The standard pricing available on vmware.com, inclusive of 1 year support, comes out to $26360.- USD for 20 vessels. While Update Manager could potentially be useful, the other features provided by vSphere Standard, such as Thin Provisioning, High Availability, and vMotion, are not necessary for my use case.

I’m not alone in this scenario, as I’m sure there are other customers looking to deploy vSphere Hypervisor in remote locations where they will only be running a single VM. It would be beneficial for VMware to offer a “vCenter Connector” license for vSphere Hypervisor that only provides a way to connect to an existing licensed vCenter instance. This would allow customers like me to manage our off-site installs in a single console without incurring the cost of licensing all the features we don’t need.

I understand that VMware wants to get paid for their enterprise products, and I’m normally happy to do so. However, in this case, the return simply does not warrant the cost. While vSphere Hypervisor is free, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, and customers like me need more flexibility in terms of licensing.

I hope VMware will consider my proposal and provide a more cost-effective solution for customers looking to connect their off-site vSphere Hypervisor installs to an existing vCenter instance. Until then, I’ll be left with the challenge of finding an alternative solution that fits my budget and meets my needs.