vSphere 7 Essentials Plus license compatibility with vSphere 9.0

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Using vSphere 7 Essentials Plus license on newly upgraded ESXi host running version 9.0

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The Essentials Plus license is a discontinued perpetual model and is not compatible with the new subscription-based licensing introduced in vSphere 9.0.

Resolution

Existing Essentials Plus licenses cannot be used with vSphere 9.0.

VMware vSphere is available in two standalone editions—vSphere Standard and vSphere Enterprise Plus—as well as being included within VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation.

Please note that vSphere Standard and Enterprise Plus are supported only up to version 8 Update 3. At present, vSphere 9.0 features are exclusively available with VMware vSphere Foundation 9.0 and VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.

Refer to this document for more information: VMware vSphere Product Line Comparison.