I have a 2 node ESX VI3 Enterprise setup, which I am about to upgrade to VSphere 4 through a SnS renewal. I am then going to purchase 2 brand new servers so I can use Fault Tolerence, and because my existing ESX hosts are 3 years old and I want to make use of the new blazing fast Intel 5500 series chips
My plan, was to move my existing 2 older physical servers into a non-mission critical role and just run ESXi Free on them. Then I started reading that to use various enterprise-grade VMware compatible backup softwares, I would need to have at least ESX Essentials. Plus, this would mean my 2 non-crit ESX hosts would have VCenter agents, which I hoped would allow me to view them in my VCenter Enterprise console along with my other 2 Enterprise ESX hosts. Then I started reading that Essentials and Essentials Plus licenses were not to be used in conjunction or broken apart with other versions (or phrased something like that). I called VMware licensing and they said I could manage my Essentials hosts with an Enterprise VCenter, but then my Dell rep told me that I could not.
Can someone clear that up for me? Can I buy and use a separate Essentials bundle but view/manage those 2 (up to 3) ESX hosts in my Enterprise VCenter along side with my 2 mission critical ESX servers running Enterprise licenses? If not, does that mean I will have to have 2 separate VCenters, one for my 2-server Enterprise group, and one for my 2-server Essentials group??
Thanks so much
Ben