DATA S H E E T

VMware vSphere

Enterprise Edition and Enterprise Plus Edition

AT A G L A N C E

Designed for organizations that want to virtualize

their entire datacenters and deliver IT as a service,
VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition and VMware
vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition include the full
range of vSphere features for transforming
datacenters into dramatically simplified cloud
computing environments that can deliver the
next generation of flexible, reliable IT services.
KEY BENEFITS

Efficiency through utilization and automation

Achieve consolidation ratios of 15:1 or more and
improve hardware utilization from 515 percent
to as much as 80 percent or morewithout
sacrificing performance.
Dramatically lower IT costs Reduce capital
expenditures by up to 70 percent and operational
expenditures by up to 30 percent to achieve
2030 percent lower IT infrastructure costs
for each application running on vSphere.
Agility with control Respond quickly to changing
business needs without sacrificing security or
control, and deliver zero-touch infrastructure with
built-in availability, scalability and performance
guarantees for all business-critical applications
running on vSphere.
Freedom of choice Use a common, standardsbased platform to leverage existing IT assets
alongside next-generation IT services, and
enhance vSphere through open APIs with
solutions from a global ecosystem of leading
technology providers.

What Is VMware vSphere?

VMware vSphere is the industry-leading virtualization platform
for building cloud infrastructures. It enables IT to meet SLAs
(service-level agreements) for the most demanding businesscritical applications, at the lowest TCO (total cost of ownership).
vSphere accelerates the shift to cloud computing for existing
datacenters and also underpins compatible public cloud offerings,
forming the foundation for the industrys only hybrid cloud
model. With the support of more than 3,000 applications from
more than 1,650 ISV partners, vSphere is the trusted platform for
any application.

How Is vSphere Used?

Consolidate and optimize IT hardware vSphere enables
IT organizations to delay costly and disruptive datacenter
expansion projects by making it possible to consolidate 15 or
more virtual machines on a single physical server without
sacrificing performance or throughput.
Improve business continuity vSphere helps organizations
reduce the cost and complexity of business continuity and
disaster recovery with always-on IT capabilities and layered
protection against service outages and data loss.
Streamline IT operations vSphere lowers operational
overhead and dramatically simplifies the management of
development, quality assurance and production IT
environments that are large and geographically distributed.
Deliver IT as a service vSphere is the only virtualization
platform that gives customers the power to realize the benefits
of cloud computing while maintaining security, compliance and
complete control over corporate assets.

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VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition

and Enterprise Plus Edition

Key Features and Components

vSphere Hypervisor architecture provides a robust, productionproven, high-performance virtualization layer. It allows multiple
virtual machines to share hardware resources with performance
that can match (and in some cases exceed) native throughput.
vSphere Virtual Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) enables
the use of ultrapowerful virtual machines that possess up to
32 virtual CPUs for Enterprise Edition and 64 virtual CPUs for
Enterprise Plus Edition.
VMware virtual hardware can support 1TB of RAM and a variety
of next-generation hardware.
vSphere VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) allows virtual
machines to access shared storage devices (Fibre Channel,
iSCSI, etc.) and is a key enabling technology for other vSphere
components such as vSphere Storage vMotion.
vSphere Storage APIs provide integration with supported thirdparty data-protection, multipathing and disk-array solutions.
vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) provides
dynamic, hardware-independent load balancing and resource
allocation for virtual machines in a cluster, using policy-driven
automation to reduce management complexity while enhancing
compliance with service-level agreements (SLAs).

vSphere Distributed Power Management (DPM), included

with DRS, automates energy efficiency in DRS clusters by
continuously optimizing server power consumption within
each cluster.
vSphere Thin Provisioning provides dynamic allocation of
shared storage capacity, enabling IT organizations to implement
a tiered storage strategy while reducing storage spending by up
to 50 percent.
vSphere vMotion enables live migration of virtual machines
between servers with no disruption to users or loss of service,
eliminating the need to schedule application downtime for
planned server maintenance.
vSphere Storage vMotion enables live migration of virtualmachine disks with no disruption to users, eliminating the need
to schedule application downtime for planned storage
maintenance or storage migrations.
vSphere High Availability (HA) provides cost-effective,
automated restart within minutes for all applications if a
hardware or operating system failure occurs.
vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT) provides continuous availability
of any application in the event of a hardware failurewith no
data loss or downtime.
vSphere Data Protection provides simple, cost effective
backup and recovery for virtual machines. It is a newly
architected solution based EMC Avamar technology that
enables agentless backups with built-in deduplication.
vSphere vShield Zones simplifies application security by
enforcing corporate security policies at the application level
in a shared environment while maintaining trust and network
segmentation of users and sensitive data.
VMware vShield Endpoint secures virtual machines with
offloaded antivirus and anti-malware (AV) solutions without
the need for agents inside the virtual machine.

vSphere provides a complete virtualization platform with a comprehensive set of

application and infrastructure services.

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VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition

and Enterprise Plus Edition

vSphere Replication enables efficient array-agnostic replication

of virtual machine data over the LAN or WAN. vSphere Replication
simplifies management enabling replication at the virtual machine
level and enables RPOs as low as 15 minutes.

vSphere Storage DRS automated load balancing uses

storage characteristics to determine the best place for a
virtual machines data to reside both when it is created
and when it is used over time.

Hot Add enables administrators to add CPU and memory to

virtual machines when needed without disruption or downtime.

vSphere Profile-Driven Storage reduces the steps in the

selection of storage resources by grouping storage according
to a user-defined policy.

vSphere Update Manager automates tracking, patching and

updating for vSphere hosts, and for applications and operating
systems running in virtual machines.
vCenter Converter enables IT administrators to rapidly
convert physical servers and third-party virtual machines
into virtual machines.
vSphere Web Client is the core administrative interface into
vSphere. It enables IT administrators to manage the essential
functions of vSphere from anywhere in the world.

Components Exclusive to vSphere

Enterprise Plus Edition
vSphere Auto Deploy performs quick, as-needed deployment
of additional vSphere hosts. When Auto Deploy is running, it
pushes out update images, eliminating patching and the need
to schedule patch windows.
vSphere Host Profiles help IT administrators simplify host
deployment and compliance by creating virtual machines
from configuration templates.

vSphere Network I/O Control sets network quality-of-service

priorities for guaranteed access to network resources.

Customer Success Stories

Marshall University, the oldest public institution of higher
learning in West Virginia, has leveraged vSphere to extend the
life of an overcrowded datacenter while reducing IT expenditures
and accelerating server provisioning time.
Read the Marshall University success story:
http://www.vmware.com/go/customer_success/marshall_u
EGIS Nyrt., one of the leading pharmaceutical manufacturers in the
Central-Eastern-European region, has used vSphere to consolidate
the number of servers managed and has virtualized its business
critical applications to help improve performance and uptime.
Read the EGIS Nyrt. Success story:
http://www.vmware.com/go/customer_success/EGIS_Nyrt

vSphere Distributed Switch simplifies and enhances

virtual machine networking in vSphere environments and
enables third-party distributed virtual switches to be used
in vSphere environments.

QIC, one of Australias largest institutional investment managers,

has used vSphere to virtualize 80 percent of its Microsoft Windows
Server production servers to not only streamline its infrastructure,
but has also leveraged vSpheres backup and recovery capabilities
to further its disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

vSphere Storage I/O Control sets storage quality-of-service

priorities for guaranteed access to storage resources.

Read the QIC Success story:

http://www.vmware.com/go/customer_success/QIC

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VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition

and Enterprise Plus Edition

Additional vSphere Products and Add-Ons

VMware vCenter Server vCenter Server provides unified
management for the entire virtual infrastructure and enables
many key vSphere capabilities, such as live migration. vCenter
Server can manage thousands of virtual machines across
multiple locations and streamlines administration with features
such as rapid provisioning and automated policy enforcement.
Note: vCenter Server is a required element of a complete
vSphere implementation and is licensed separately on a
per-instance basis.
Cisco Nexus 1000V This pure-software network switch
integrates with vSphere to deliver virtualization-aware network
services. It is available for purchase as an add-on product for use
with vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition.

Support and Professional Services

VMware offers global subscription and support (SnS) services to
all vSphere customers. For customers requiring additional services,
VMware also offers professional services engagements on best
practices and getting started with your vSphere deployment, both
directly and through an extensive network of certified professionals.
http://www.vmware.com/services/

How to Buy
To purchase vSphere, use the online VMware Partner Locator
to find an authorized reseller in your area: http://partnerlocator.
vmware.com/

You can also visit the online VMware Store to determine which kit
or edition of vSphere is right for your organization: http:// www.
vmware.com/vmwarestore/datacenter-products/
If you are an existing vSphere or VMware Infrastructure customer,
visit the vSphere Upgrade Center to determine the appropriate
upgrade path for your organization: http://www.vmware.com/
products/vsphere/upgrade-center/
For organizations that are new to virtualization, VMware offers
solution bundles called vSphere Acceleration Kits that combine
a vSphere edition with vCenter Server. They are available for up
to 30 percent off the list price: http://www.vmware.com/
vmwarestore/buyvsphere- acceleration-kits.html

VMware vCloud Suite

Building on vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition, the VMware vCloud
Suite delivers a complete, integrated cloud infrastructure suite
that simplifies IT operations while delivering the best SLAs for
all applications. The vCloud Suite includes the entire set of cloud
infrastructure capabilities: virtualization, software-defined datacenter
services, policy-based provisioning, disaster recovery, application
management and operations management.

Learn More
For information or to purchase VMware products, call
877-4-VMWARE (outside North America, +1-650-427-5000),
visit http://www.vmware.com/products, or search online for
an authorized reseller. For detailed product specifications and
system requirements, refer to the vSphere documentation.

VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com
Copyright 2012 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed
at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be
trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: VMW-DS-vSPHERE-ENT-EDITION-USLET-105
07/12