UPDATED MARCH 2024
VMware vSphere®
Product Line Comparison
The enterprise workload engine
Key Attributes
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Licensing Model Subscription Subscription Subscription
Core based
License Metric (Kit includes 96 Per Core Per Core
core licenses)
Includes vCenter Includes vCenter Includes vCenter
vCenter Edition
Essentials Standard Standard
Aria Suite Standard No No Yes
VMware Tanzu® Kubernetes Grid™
No No Yes
Service for vSphere
Yes, requires
vSAN Enterprise (100 GiB per core) No No
8.0U2B
1
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Admin services and Intelligent Operations Management
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
vCenter Lifecycle Management Service
Simplifies the lifecycle management of vCenter instances
with a single click. Reduces maintenance window making it
easier to schedule updates sooner, allowing more rapid
access to new features.
VMware Aria Operations: Continuous
Performance Optimization
With VMware Aria Operations, assure hybrid cloud
performance at minimal cost. Based on operational and
business intent, real-time predictive analytics, and AI drive
actions to automatically balance workloads and proactively
avoid contention.
VMware Aria Operations: Efficient Cost and
Capacity Management
Reduce cost and improve efficiency with real-time,
predictive capacity and cost analytics, delivering
optimal consolidation and proactive planning. Using
a real time, forward-looking capacity analytics engine
VMware Aria Operations can predict future demand, get
actionable recommendations, and automate reclamation
and rightsizing.
VMware Aria Operations: Intelligent Remediation
Use VMware Aria Operations to predict, prevent, and
troubleshoot faster with actionable insights correlating
metrics, events, logs and configuration data to deliver
AI-based anomaly detection across private clouds. Extend
monitoring visibility to multiple public clouds as well as
physical compute and storage.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 2
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Admin services and Intelligent Operations Management (continued)
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
VMware Aria Operations: Integrated Compliance
Reduce risk and enforce IT regulatory standards with Aria
Operations integrated compliance and automated drift
remediation. Ensure your environment’s adherence to
common requirements with six out-of-the-box compliance
templates—such as for PCI or HIPAA —or create your own
custom templates.
VMware Aria Operations for Logs
Manage log data at scale with centralized infrastructure log
management, deep operational visibility, and intelligent
analytics for troubleshooting and auditing across
environments. Capabilities include interactive logs analysis,
Kubernetes log collection, alerts, active directory integration,
role-based access control, scheduled dashboard reports,
and event forwarding.
VMware Skyline Health
Avoid issues before they occur. Pinpoint potential problems
across your VMware environment and use Skyline’s
remediation guidance to fix the issues that can cause
disruptive and costly IT downtime. Use the Skyline Log
Assist feature to upload support log bundle files and
diagnostic reports to your VMware support cases.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 3
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
DevOps services
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid™ Service
The Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service allows developers
to manage consistent, compliant, and conformant
Kubernetes clusters.
Tanzu Integrated Services
Streamlines the deployment and management of local and
in-cluster platform services—like logging, monitoring,
networking, and storage services—to easily configure and
maintain a production-ready Kubernetes environment.
Storage Service
The Volume Service allows developers to manage
persistent disks for use with containers, Kubernetes and
virtual machines. Deploy existing block and file storage
infrastructure for containerized workloads.
Network Service
The Network Service allows developers to manage
Virtual Routers, Load Balancers and Firewall Rules.
Leverage existing networking infrastructure using vSphere
Distributed Switch’s (VDS) centralized interface to configure,
monitor and administer switching access for VMs and
Kubernetes workloads.
Container Registry Service
The Registry Service allows developers to store, manage
and secure Docker and OCI container images.
VM Registry Service
This registry service enables DevOps teams and developers
to publish and manage their own VM images within a
content library.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 4
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
DevOps services (continued)
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Network Load Balancing NSX Advanced
Network load balancing for Tanzu Kubernetes clusters. Load Balancer
Essentials
included
VM Service
The VM service allows developers to create virtual machines
independently from Kubernetes without requiring access to
vSphere Client.
Workload Availability Zones
Enhance Kubernetes workload HA with availability zones.
Provides resilience that spans across multiple clusters and
potentially larger geographical areas.
Simplified TKG cluster lifecycle management
Easily configure TKG clusters at deployment time.
Declarative TKG cluster deployment configuration through
Kubernetes upstream aligned ClusterClass.
TKG cluster package management
Easily manage TKG cluster packages. Configure preferred
packages for TKG cluster configuration through Carvel and
Tanzu CLI.
Customizable base OS images
Customize base OS images for fast, consistent deployments.
For example, customize images to include logging or
monitoring tools, change OS parameters, adjust user
configuration files, add firewall rules, etc.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 5
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Simplified operations
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
vSphere Lifecycle Manager
Manage infrastructure images to patch, update or upgrade
ESXi clusters using a desired state model.
vCenter Server® Profiles
Desired state config management capabilities for vCenter
Server. It helps the user to define/validate/ apply
configuration for multiple vCenter Servers.
vCenter Server Update Planner
Manage the compatibility and interoperability for vCenter
Server for upgrade scenarios. We will allow users to
generate the interoperability & pre-checks report, which will
help them plan for upgrades.
Content Library
Added administrative control and versioning support.
Provides simple and effective centralized management for
virtual machine templates, virtual appliances, ISO images
and scripts.
vSphere Configuration Profiles
Set host configuration at the cluster level, verify that hosts
are compliant, and remediate hosts that are not compliant.
Distributed Switch™
Centralizes provisioning, administration, and monitoring
by using cluster-level network aggregation.
Host Profiles and Auto Deploy™
Captures host-level configuration settings and saves them as
a template to configure other vSphere hosts. Monitors hosts
for configuration changes and automatically alerts vSphere
administrators if a host falls out of compliance.
Virtual Volumes™
Virtualizes external storage (SAN and NAS) and provides VM-
aware, policy-based storage management through vCenter.
Green Metrics
Get power consumed by workloads, infrastructure services
and idling time, at the host or VM level Discover
opportunities to 1) optimize carbon footprint of power-hungry
workloads and 2) use idle time to consolidate workloads.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 6
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Built-in security
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Identity Federation
Connect to Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Active
Directory Federation Services (AD FS), Microsoft Entra ID,
and Okta for centralized authentication and multifactor
authentication.
vSphere Trust Authority
Remote attestation for sensitive workloads.
Trusted Platform Module Support
Supports TPM 2.0 adding hardware security protections to
the hypervisor.
Virtual TPM
Adds a virtual TPM 2.0 to virtual machines, enabling in-guest
security features.
FIPS 40-2, 140-3, and Common Criteria Certification
Third-party validation of cryptographic algorithms, and
validation of the security inside the hypervisor.
TLS 1.2 and 1.3
Modern data-in-transit cryptographic protections.
Virtual Machine Encryption
Data-at-rest encryption for virtual machine data and disks.
Standard Key Provider
Store vTPM, VM Encryption, and vSAN Data-at-Rest
Encryption cryptographic keys in an external Key
Management System (KMS) using the KMIP protocol.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 7
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Built-in security (cont.)
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Native Key Provider
Enable vTPM and other data-at-rest protections natively
within vSphere.
Support for Microsoft Virtualization-Based
Security (VBS)
Enable in-guest protections such as Device Guard
and Credential Guard on Microsoft Windows guest
operating systems.
Per-VM Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
Allows seamless migration across different CPUs across the
hybrid cloud by persisting the EVC mode per-VM during
migrations across clusters and during power cycles.
Instant Clone
Reduces provisioning times, especially beneficial for
VDI applications.
VMware vShield Endpoint
Secures VMs with offloaded anti-virus and anti-
malware solutions, without the need for agents
inside the VMs.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 8
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Application performance
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Compatible with NVIDIA AI-Ready Enterprise Platform
Deliver AI/ML applications using vSphere and NVIDIA AI
Enterprise Suite.
Distributed Resource Scheduler™ (DRS)
Redesigned with a more workload centric approach, DRS
balances resources allocated to workloads in a vSphere
cluster; versus the previously used cluster-wide deviation
model; also resulting in an improved cycle time.
Storage DRS™
Automated load balancing now looks at storage
characteristics to determine the best place for a given virtual
machine’s data when it is created and used overtime.
Distributed Power Management™ (DPM)
Optimizes power consumption by turning off hosts during
periods of reduced demand.
Storage Policy-Based Management
Allows common management across storage tiers and
dynamic storage class-of-service automation via a policy-
driven control plane.
I/O Controls (Network and Storage)
Prioritizes storage and Network access by continuously
monitoring I/O load of a storage volume and over the
network, and dynamically allocating available I/O resources
to virtual machines according to business needs.
Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) Support
Allows one PCI Express (PCIe) adapter to be presented as
multiple separate logical devices to virtual machines. Allows
users to offload I/O processing and reduce network latency.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 9
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Application performance (continued)
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
vSphere Persistent Memory™
Leverages Persistent Memory to get DRAM like
performance with flash like prices.
NVIDIA GRID vGPU
Enables native 2D and 3D graphics performance for
virtual machines. Supports multiple vGPUs per VM.
Proactive HA
Receive server health information and migrate virtual
machines from degraded hosts before problems occur.
Accelerated Graphics for Virtual Machines
Dynamic DirectPath IO
Support for vGPU and DirectPath I/O initial VM placement.
Vendor Device Group
Combine multiple PCIe devices into a group that is
assigned as a unit to a VM, giving it user-prescribed
access to that group.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 10
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Business continuity
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
vSphere Hypervisor
Provides a robust, production-proven, high-performance
virtualization layer.
vMotion
Enables live migration of virtual machines with no disruption
to users or loss of service, eliminating the need to schedule
application downtime for planned server maintenance. The
recent enhancements in vMotion logic provides non-
disruptive operations, irrespective of the size of VMs,
specifically for large and mission critical workloads.
vCenter® Hybrid Linked Mode
Enables unified visibility and management across
on-premises vCenter and vCenter on a vSphere enabled
cloud such as VMware Cloud on AWS.
vSMP
Virtual symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) enables virtual
machines to have multiple virtual CPUs.
High Availability (HA)
Automatically restarts your VMs following physical
machine failure.
Storage vMotion
Avoids application downtime for planned storage
maintenance by migrating live virtual machine disk files
across storage arrays.
Fault Tolerance
Provides continuous availability of any application in the
2-vCPU 8-vCPU
event of a hardware failure — with no data loss or downtime
for workloads up to 8-vCPU.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 11
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Business continuity (continued)
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
vSphere Replication™
Enables efficient, array-agnostic replication of virtual
machine data over the LAN or WAN, and simplifies
management by enabling replication at the virtual
machine level.
Support for 4K Native Storage
Enhances platform scalability by leveraging high-capacity
drives. Reduce CAPEX.
vSphere Quick Boot™
Skips hardware initialization steps and dramatically
reduces time required for patching and upgrades.
vCenter High Availability
Automatically restarts your VMs following physical
machine failure.
vCenter Backup and Restore
Native vCenter Server backup and restore.
vCenter Server Appliance™ Migration
A tool for single-step migration and upgrade of
existing Windows vCenter deployments to vCenter
Server Appliance.
Updated MARCH 2024 | 12
VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison
Hybrid cloud capabilities
vSphere® vSphere® vSphere®
Essentials Plus Kit Standard Foundation
(Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)
Cross vCenter Mixed Version Provisioning
Uses different vCenter versions across on-premises and
vSphere based public cloud environments, while allowing
provisioning operations such as vMotion, Full Clone and
Cold Migrate to continue on seamlessly.
Hot and Cold Migration to the Cloud
Supports hot and cold migration of workloads across the
hybrid cloud.
Per VM Enhanced vMotion Compatibility
Allows seamless migration across different CPUs across the
hybrid cloud by persisting the EVC mode per-VM during
migrations across clusters and during power cycles.
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