The trouble with the free version previously offered is that managing any virtual machines created with new virtual hardware type requires the Web Console which you only get with vCenter and a purchase version of vSphere 5.5. VSphere 6 isn't much different in that regard, however saying that the essentials license last time I looked was about £5-600 for 3 hosts so if this is for a company you can save yourself a lot of headaches just by getting the essentials bundle of vSphere to unlock vCenter and the web console. However if this is for a personal lab then just utilise demo licenses, I think they run for 60 days and you can grab a demo license with little more than an email address when you get near the end of the license you can just register for a new one using a different email address. Harry Lui wrote: dalescriven wrote: The trouble with the free version previously offered is that managing any virtual machines created with new virtual hardware type requires the Web Console That is correct. We stick with hardware version 8 for that reason, so we can machine using vSphere Client with ESXi 5.5 I've seen this mentioned a few times lately on SpiceWorks and this information is out of date. You can manage newer VM hardware versions than version 8 with the c# client I don't know of a situation where you would be able to create a newer hardware version VM and wouldn't because of the issue above.
If you can create an 8+ hardware version VM you can still manage that VM as if it were a version 8 VM in the C# client and only go into the web client if you want to use the newer functionality. If you don't have the ability to create newer than version 8 hardware VM because you're using ESXi for free then how is it an issue at all? Seems like you're only causing yourself possible trouble in the future by creating version 8 VMs if you have the ability to use the newer ones currently. Maybe I'm missing a use case where this matters other than I never want to see the web client even if it's only for creating VMs. DrewDeM wrote: Harry Lui wrote: dalescriven wrote: The trouble with the free version previously offered is that managing any virtual machines created with new virtual hardware type requires the Web Console That is correct. We stick with hardware version 8 for that reason, so we can machine using vSphere Client with ESXi 5.5 I've seen this mentioned a few times lately on SpiceWorks and this information is out of date.
You can manage newer VM hardware versions than version 8 with the c# client I don't know of a situation where you would be able to create a newer hardware version VM and wouldn't because of the issue above. If you can create an 8+ hardware version VM you can still manage that VM as if it were a version 8 VM in the C# client and only go into the web client if you want to use the newer functionality. If you don't have the ability to create newer than version 8 hardware VM because you're using ESXi for free then how is it an issue at all? Seems like you're only causing yourself possible trouble in the future by creating version 8 VMs if you have the ability to use the newer ones currently. Maybe I'm missing a use case where this matters other than I never want to see the web client even if it's only for creating VMs.